A witch's shards
by NoxedSalvation
Summary: Ballancing on the faultline between worlds is always dangerous, but when dark forces rise to wreck her life, Hermione might just fall off the edge.
1. Justly deserved holidays Chapter 1

_**Author's note, July 2012:**_ Dear reader, welcome to my first - and as of now, only - Harry Potter fanfiction. Before you start to work your way through my humble prose, I'd like to address some points regarding the story. Most importantly, you should know that this work is for a mature audience; it will include some very disturbing things in later chapters.

It's also a femslash (HG/FD) story, but not a typical romance. I'm writing "A witch's shards" to explore the possibility of an independent, powerful Hermione, involved in intrigue, politics and the dark arts. Her relationship with Mademoiselle Delacour will play a major role in all that, but it's not the whole focus of this fiction.

Some technical stuff: I'm not a native English speaker. I will do my best to ensure correct grammar and orthography, but some bugs are virtually guaranteed. I'm currently reworking the format to improve readability, and in that process I will hopefully get rid of most obvious problems. If someone would like to be the beta- reader for "A witch's shards", I would be very grateful.

Disclaimer: JK Rowling and some mega- corporations own "Harry Potter". I do not, and I'm not making any money with this story.

_**A Witch's Shards**_

by NoxedSalvation

Prolog

Black clouds billowed in the sky over Malfoy Manor, indicating a swiftly approaching thunderstorm. The charged atmosphere fitted the mood of the estates owner all too well.

The occasional ray of dim light falling through the large lead glass windows of his office did nothing to illuminate the enormous study. Wide spanning wand hangings displayed golden threaded hereditary trees, and portraits of venerated ancestors looked down into the room.

A few embers were glowing in the great fireplace, but they didn't produce enough warmth to have any effect.

Lucius Malfoy wouldn't have felt it anyway, because the cold claw of hate held his heart in it's merciless grasp.

Most members of the public knew him as a philanthropist, a still suffering victim of "You-know-who's" imperius curse. A family man who used his considerable wealth to find peace in the face of the crimes he committed while under the monster's will.

No, the readers of Rita Skeeter's society columns wouldn't have recognized the stone faced wizard who paced menacingly in front of his massive mahogany desk.

He stopped for a moment, and cast a look full of rage on the tattered and dirty remains of the unremarkable little book that lay on his Victorian secretary. If his master ever returned, he would enquire after this particular item and then...

Lucius couldn't suppress the shudder that ran down his spine, as he remembered the tremendous pain the Dark Lord liked to inflict with the cruciatus curse.

How had all his well laid plans backfired in such a disastrous way? Instead of installing one of his own puppets in place of Dumbledore, he had lost all his influence on the affairs of Hogwarts.

The mudbloods and traitors held still sway where only those of purest wizarding heritage should place their feet.

Behind the strands of long, white- blond hair falling over his face, Lucius' mask of emotionless aristocratic "noblesse" started to show cracks.

Political damage could be controlled, through bribes, blackmail or even more direct methods, but to be humiliated by a halfblood social climber like Potter, and manhandled by his own house-elve- that was unbearable!

He would find a way to get his revenge, he would not rest until this smear on his honor was obliterated. The smug grin Potter had given him, when that creature Dobby threw him into a wall, would be burned away forever.

His visualization of Potter writhing in agonizing pain was interrupted by muted knocks. "Enter!" he called, shoving his irritation down forcefully. The door to his study opened slowly, as if the one coming in was fearful to disturb the master of Malfoy Manor.

Lucius suppressed his desire to frown at the less than confident manner of entrance.

At the moment, it wouldn't do to let his son see anything but cold calculation on his face. In the last few days, he had managed to minimize the damage he had suffered from the destruction of the diary.

Sure, he was sacked as a school governor of Hogwarts, but no one beside Dumbledore and Harry Potter knew that he had a hand in the opening of the Chamber of Secrets.

Even better, after a few deathly glares, not one of his acquaintances had dared to enquire further into the whereabouts of his thrice damned house elve.

His position in the ministry's power structure had been stabilized by some well placed "donations". Even his campaign to stop Arthur Weasleys laughable "Muggle Protection act" had survived the recent misfortunes unharmed.

Now was the time to gather information, and to look into opportunities for his revenge.

Finally, Draco entered the room and reluctantly approached his father's desk.

He had just returned a few minutes ago, collected by Narcissa from platform 9 3/4, and was still wearing his black school uniform with the green and silver Slytherin pendant on the breast.

Raising one of his eyebrows, Lucius greeted his offspring in a cool and detached tone. "Draco my boy, I hope you have better news for me than last year..."

He left the end of the sentence hanging in the air like a threat. After all, he had paid a handsome amount of galleons to buy the best brooms for Slytherin's Quidditch team, getting his son the seeker position in return.

But judging by the way the youths' face lost all color, Lucius' investment had been in vain.

"I'm very sorry sir." his heir answered in an unbecomingly faint whisper, looking at his feet in order to avoid his father's cool stare..

Lucius kept silent, watchful and detached. A few minutes went by, and the stillness of the room became suffocating. In the end, Draco looked up, met his father's gaze, and gulped dryly.

He straightened, visibly mustering his courage, and started to explain, this time a bit more forcefully.

"The damn Gryffindors were favored again by that fool of a headmaster! I really tried father, I promise you, but you can't win when the other side is rigging the game."

Draco's indignation at loosing the quidditch, as well as the school cup, showed clearly, and Lucius softened his face to show his son that he was forgiven.

"I'm disappointed Draco, but I know that Dumbledore and his cohorts are hard to overcome. I'm sure you heard how they forced me out of the board of governors."

The boy nodded, and his face became even more animated. "They are a bunch of imbeciles. Too cowardly to sack Dumbledore when he clearly deserved it for his incompetence!"

"Don't worry yourself overmuch with the politics Draco, the blood traitors will get what is theirs in due time."

Many a shark would have been jealous of the predatory smile that accompanied those words. "Well, if you can't give me good news about your success in beating a horde of worthless blood traitors and mudblood scum, maybe you can clear up some questions I have about this years events."

Nodding eagerly, Draco took a step towards his father. "Yes sir, I will tell you everything I know about the goings on in Hogwarts, and that's a lot."

"I expected nothing less, Draco." Lucius said with a satisfied air about him.

"You will start by telling me every little bit of information you gathered about the Potter brat. How is his health? His standing with teachers and students alike? His marks and abilities? His friends and enemies..."

About two hours later, Lucius was staring into the flames of his fireplace and contemplated all he had heard from his son.

The boy was a bit dense when it came to intrigue, naive about his own position in live, and hopelessly spoilt by his mother, but no one could deny his craftiness in spying and information gathering.

Despite the massive amount of new insights Draco had delivered, the older Malfoy hadn't made much headway in finding weaknesses or openings in his adversaries' camp.

Hogwarts' headmaster was a sentimental fool, sure, but he was also a very powerful wizard anyone underestimated at his own peril, as Lucius had learnt in the last weeks. And the "boy who lived"... he snorted derisively at the ridiculous title the wizarding masses had put on Potter after his lucky "defeat" of the Dark Lord.

No one knew for sure where the child lived outside of school, and the elder Malfoy didn't doubt for a second that Dumbledore had put up strong defenses around his wonder boy. No, those two were untouchable for him in the next months, probably even years.

He would have to contend himself with striking at them indirectly. But attacking Dumbledore that way would be all but impossible. Most of his family was dead and he had no known love interests or close friends outside of Hogwarts.

His brother Alberforth was a quite formidable wizard in his own right, no one Lucius wished to tangle with right now. That left Harry Potter again.

There were rumors that he resided with relatives of his late mother, but nothing substantial. And his "closest chum", as Draco had formulated it, was one of those accursed Weasleys.

Lucius would've liked nothing better than to send a pack of werewolves rampaging through the hovel they called their home, but after the latest events, and his well known hate for Arthur Weasley, going against them would be rather obvious- and therefore stupid.

Draco had mentioned one other person he thought close to Potter, had even ranted about the "know it all attitude" of "that insufferable mudblood".

Lucius eyes wandered over his notes, until they found the name his son had spat out like a curse word: Hermione Granger.

A thirteen year old witch, born to muggles, a brainy teachers pet, with enough moronic bravery to become a Gryffindor and meddle in things that were none of her business.

To be precise, nothing in the magical world was the business of breathing filth like that Granger abomination.

Lucius suspected that he'd seen her a year ago at Flourish and Blotts, but wasn't entirely sure. He had been occupied otherwise, after all.

Sighing in disappointment, Malfoy senior realized that if he wanted to act against Potter in the near future, he would have to settle for the weakest, most unprotected link he had identified.

Tipping his left index finger against his lips thoughtfully, Lucius began to formulate the outlines of a plan.

Part One

Justly deserved holidays

Chapter 1

The soft sound of waves rolling up a sandy beach front was relaxing, and the warm light coming from the Mediterranean sun made her feel like she was surrounded by a cocoon of benevolence.

But she remembered very well what happened when she exposed her sensitive skin too long to these conditions. A retreat into the shades of the umbrellas, set up about a hundred feet back, nearer to the hotel pool, was in order.

Pushing a few strands of bushy hair out of her face with a well practised motion, the young girl, who was laying on a large towel, looked up from her reading to search for her parents.

She spotted Miriam and Charles nearby, and a happy smile sprang to her lips. The Grangers were absorbed in an intense game of beach volleyball against another British couple, whom they had met two days before, when they arrived at this resort.

Hermione stood up, and brushed away a few errand sand corns, which had found their way onto her red one-piece swimsuit.

Tucking her copy of "Magical Travel: Discovering Wizarding France" under her right arm, she was careful not to dislodge the romance novel cover she used to hide the rather suspicious book from the muggles around her.

Slowly making her way over to the playing field, the young witch had to concentrate for a moment to banish all images of wizarding Paris and its most famous sights from the upper levels of her consciousness.

If she let herself dwell on thoughts about magical locations, people or practises, it was all too easy to slip up when she was confronted with normal people.

After some very embarrassing experiences, garnering her everything from odd looks to rumours about her "delusional state of mind", not to mention some "earnest conservations" with her father, the young witch had learnt to compartmentalise her mind and direct her thinking into save waters whenever she met muggles.

It felt wrong to spring from one track of thought to another in this way, but Hermione knew it was necessary.

She arriver at the volleyball net, rested her shoulder against one of the poles holding it up, and watched her parents play while she waited for a pause in the game to address them.

Her dad was a very lean man, toned muscles covering his six foot frame. Despite his work as a dentist, he held his body as fit as possible, frequently working out, jogging and playing golf with his colleagues at least once a week.

In his early forties, Charles Granger looked at least five years younger and the only wrinkles on his face were a few laugh lines around his brown eyes.

Many of his friends teased him about his rather wild and full brown hair, but he tolerated the jealous quips of his balding buddies good naturedly.

If Hermione had inherited her eye color and hair from her father, the rest of her physique came undoubtedly from her mum. Miriam Granger was about 5'7, with a well formed body and womanly curves at all the right places.

Her daughter shared many features of her pretty face, but no one could've accused Mrs. Granger of using her good looks to unduly further her career.

She was a practising dentist like her husband, and the two held shared ownership of a flourishing praxis in the inner city of London.

The set ended with a resounding win for the Grangers, announced by a jubilant "whoop" from Charles. Hermione clapped enthusiastically to show her support and her parents heads turned in her direction.

"Great game, mum, dad! I just wanted to let you know that I'm going back to the pool."

Miriam nodded approvingly. "Run along then, darling, we don't want to be seen traveling through France with a lobster. Too many gourmets around in this country..."

Charles and their game partners laughed uproariously at the joke.

"We'll catch up with you for dinner" Miriam promised, before starting the next set with a brilliant service.

Hermione strolled back to the hotel pool leisurely, then got herself a big glass of iced orange juice at the bar. Taking small nips, she ambled to an unclaimed lounge and sprawled herself over it.

"It's really nice to have some time alone with mum and dad, where I can just hang around and do nothing at all." she pondered.

After the events of her second year at Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry, she had earned that much, if she said so herself.

A small shudder ran down her spine when memories of her petrification by a monstrous Basilisk, set free in the old castle, wormed their way into her awareness.

Before she had lost consciousness on that terrible day, all her nerve endings had been aflame with unbearable pain, as if they were immersed in red hot magma- a sensation more horrid than anything she had ever experienced.

Surprisingly, no one - not even her best friends Harry Potter and Ron Weasley- had asked her how it felt to have your body forcefully transformed into a heap of stone-like, insensitive substance.

"Well, if mum and dad had gotten any more information from the headmaster - or myself - about my so called "magical malady", they would've asked me all kinds of questions about it - mostly if I'm totally out of my mind to stay in such a dangerous madhouse as Hogwarts." she told herself with mirthless irony.

After the adventures around the philosophers stone in her first year, Hermione had quickly realised that telling her parents the full truth about it - or even half of it, really - would get her pulled out of school faster than she could cast a "Lumos" spell.

Careful editing was required, ideally in a way that made outright lying unnecessary. After all, telling lies was "like the caries of trust", as her dad was fond of telling her when she was younger.

With a flicker of shame, she remembered the car drive with her parents back from Kings Cross station a few weeks ago.

"So, how did you do in your end of year exams, darling?" her mother had asked with an inquisitive smile, while her dad was steering their Volvo through the thick London traffic.

"Well, there weren't any exams this year."

Her moms mouth had hung open in surprise, but before she could recover from it, Hermione had hastened on with her much rehearsed cover story.

"I wasn't the only one in school this year with a severe case of magical, eh, illness. Many of the pupils were, err, infected and it disturbed our learning so much that headmaster Dumbledore decided to forgo the exams this year."

At that point, her dad had interrupted in a very serious tone.

"That sounds highly irregular to me, Hermione. How can he guarantee the quality of your education this way? Maybe I should send him a letter and ask what he's thinking!"

With a lot of very mercurial answers and well planned excuses, she had avoided that disturbing possibility, but not without feeling queasy about it for the rest of the day.

Luckily, the preparations for their long planned holiday in France had absorbed her parents for the next weeks, and then they had set out for the Loire Valley - or Vallee de la Loire - for the first leg of their trip.

The Grangers had traveled by car through the world famous heartland of France, visiting several wineries, staying in lovely old hotels and checking out many of the historical sides.

In one of the awe-inspiring renaissance castles on their way, Hermione had even met a ghost, the very talkative astral remnant of a former baroness, who had entertained her with love stories from the 17th century.

And now, they were staying in a four star resort at the Cote D'azure, near Nice, reveling in sunshine and comfort.

"I'll better get back to reading, so that I'm prepared for next week in Paris." Hermione thought wistfully, but before she could make much progress, she had dozed of, book still firmly in her hands.

/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG

"Honey, wake up!" she heard her mother's disembodied voice whispering in her ear.

Forcing her eyes open slowly, she found her pool lounge surrounded by the Grangers and their volleyball pals, the Rutherfords.

"We decided to take dinner together this evening" her dad said.

"Come with us now, we'll freshen up a bit and throw on more acceptable evening wear."

Groaning in half hearted protest, Hermione heaved herself from her resting place and followed her parents into the hotel complex, still groggy from her nap.

While they were rising up to their floor in the elevator, her mum told her that the Rutherfords would bring their son with them, a boy of 15 she hadn't met jet.

"That means I'll have to endure a football centric dinner conversation with enough testosterone flying around to kill a breading bull." she thought despondently. Aloud, Hermione just groaned again to show her displeasure.

"You should wait until you get to know him before you start complaining" her dad said. He paused and sent her one of his best "Behave yourself" looks, only to destroy the effect with his next, lightly sarcastic remark.

"Maybe he is smashingly handsome and willing to discuss Shakespeare with you." Never able to resist her dads teasing for long, Hermione started to giggle and could suppress outright laughter only by clenching her teeth together forcefully.

After arriving in the five room apartment she shared with her parents, Hermione went to her room to change.

"Hmm, lets see if I even have something that would fit the occasion." she pondered while opening her dresser.

She had never been interested in clothes, and nearly all of her things had been bought by her mum, dragging a hesitant Hermione through the shops and malls of inner London.

A red and white two piece dress stood out to her inexperienced eye. "I guess this'll do. It's not as if I can hide my face and hair anyway."

Taking a quick shower, drying her bushy hair and changing took only fifteen minutes, and so she was back in the main room before either of her parents arrived.

She settled on the huge leather couch in the middle of the room and wondered what she should expect from this evenings' talk.

Mary and Jim Rutherford both worked in the financial sector, the wife was a stock broker and her husband something obscurely called a "business attorney". It stood to reason that British and world economy would be their topic of choice.

Their son, of course was a blank card, but if any of the slightly older boys she'd met before were an indication, he would probably be a sports freak.

"This seems to be a natural law concerning male adolescents, regardless if they are muggle or wizard" she thought sourly.

Even understanding Harry's and Ron's Quidditch fanaticism was beyond her, and that sport at least included magic.

"Athletics aside, social events like this are torture anyway." Hermione thought, pouting.

She couldn't talk about her school, her friends, her subjects, her books or even her dreams about her future profession (not that she had any fixed ones), without lying through her teeth.

That she despised telling untruths would nearly guarantee her a very boring evening, everybody else chatting away while she sat there like a mute, nodding her head along and trying to stay out of conversation.

After a few more minutes, her mum and dad came into the room, wearing formal attire and making a quite striking couple. Seeing her sitting on the couch, Miriam strode over to her in hurried steps, her high heels hammering a staccato on the parquet floor.

"Oh darling, why do you never use the make-up kit I got you for your last birthday? And the hair again!"

She cast a long suffering look at her bookish daughter. "At least the costume is a nice one. Come honey, we're running late!"

The hotel restaurant was rather crowded and it took the Grangers a few minutes to find the Rutherford family, sitting at a table prepared for six in a secluded corner. As they made their way over, Hermione caught a first glimpse of her male counterpart.

Even in sitting, he looked tall, with blond hair and a handsome, if rather square, face, attired in a well tailored tuxedo and a displaying a pose that spoke of many hours spend in similar situations.

"Ah, Charles, Miriam and Hermione, welcome!" Jim Rutherford greeted them, standing up. "I would like to introduce our son, Kevin."

The boy came to his feet and a round of handshakes and "How do you does" commenced.

Hermione sat down at one end of the table, facing Kevin Rutherford, who sent her a calculating look over the perfectly set silver cutlery on the table.

His blue eyes were penetrating, and Hermione felt herself flush when she saw his gaze moving from her face and lingering on her upper body for a few seconds longer than common decency would permit.

"How dare he stare at me like I'm some meat puppet?" she asked herself with rising temper. "He seems like the perfect jerk, and that after 30 seconds. This will be a long night, indeed."

The very finely clad garçon arrived and handed them the menu cards. Hermione was happy to have something to block Kevin's stares and pretended to study the food choices intently.

"So, what if they're in French and I only speak enough of it to ask for directions and buy something in a store? He wouldn't know!"

A few minutes passed while the adults discussed the wine and the cuisine they wanted to sample, then it was decided everyone should try the fresh ousters with an assortment of other "Fruits de mer".

The waiter came back, was given the order and took the menu lists away.

Her father and Jim Rutherford were already involved in a discussion of Tory party politics, and Miriam Granger was telling Mrs. Rutherford about their tour down the Loirainne valley.

They didn't seem to notice that a tension filled silence hung over the end of the table between the two youngsters.

Kevin hadn't stopped to muster Hermione as if she were some strange specimen and she was nearly bursting with the desire to give him an earful about boys and their ingrained rudeness.

Before she could come up with the courage to do just that, the young man in question leaned forward and addressed her in a velvety voice, just loud enough for her to hear, but not audible to anyone else.

"So, are you mute like all the other wish mops I met until now, or do you have your mouth for a reason?"

Hermione fell back in her chair as if he'd punched her in the face. "Not only a jerk, but one without inhibitions to boot!" she fumed after the shock wore of.

"He could be the bastard brother of Draco Malfoy!"

Gathering her wits, she bend over the table herself. "My hair is an inherited trait, nothing I can do about. But in your place I would wonder from whom you acquired the table manners of Vlad the Impaler."

Kevin looked surprised for a moment, but after a few seconds he spat out a vicious comeback.

"My father said your parents are dentists, but they can't be very good ones, judging by your buckteeth."

Hermione felt her eyes begin to water and looked down on her lap. If she had her wand with her right now, she wasn't sure she could've stopped herself from hexing that nasty excuse of a human being into next week!

Wringing her lightly trembling hands around each other, she tried to settle down and just ignore the youngest Rutherford.

For a few minutes, it seemed like she could get away with that tactic, but then the talk between the two mothers beside her took the seemingly unavoidable turn to their children's schooling.

"Our Kevin goes to Buckingham College; the tuition fees are expensive, but it's one of the best private institutes available in greater London" Mary Rutherford proclaimed.

Then she went on to the much dreaded question Hermione had been sure would come up sometime this evening.

"And where does your young Miss get her education?" she asked Miriam Granger.

Her mother turned to Hermione. "It's a very special school in Scotland. Maybe you could explain the details, darling?"

Having successfully regained her cool after the preceding incident, she looked up, avoiding eye contact with Kevin, and directed the sermon she had first thought up two years ago at Mrs. Rutherford.

"The school is called Hogwarts..." - a barely suppressed snort from Kevin nearly derailed her, but she soldiered on - "It's in northern Scotland, in a medieval castle lying between mountains, on the shore of a great lake. It's very exclusive, they choose their students on the basis of their abilities."

Hermione paused a second and savored the secret knowledge that those "abilities" could be used to make Kevin Rutherford gulp up slugs for the rest of his live.

"You can't get in, regardless how much you're willing to pay, unless you have the right marks and, eh, disposition." she concluded her spiel.

Mary Rutherford had a surprised look on her face, as if the notion that you couldn't buy your offspring's way into every school had never crossed her mind.

She nodded once, murmuring an unconvincing "Interesting" and the two women's conversation swung back to much more harmless topics, like the newest fashion from Paris and the socialite gossip of London's higher middle class.

The night wore on, with Hermione avoiding being caught up in the talk of the table again. She felt extremely relieved when dinner was served and everyone began to chat about - as she had foreseen – sports.

/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG

The next morning, Hermione was awoken by loud banging on her door.

"Rise and shine, darling! Time to get up!" she heard the muffled voice of her dad through the thick wood.

She fought her desire to just role over again for a few moments, then her dutiful side won and she struggled sleepily out of her bed.

"Another beautiful day on the beach- and hopefully Kevin Rutherford will stay in the hiding hole slimy gits like him retreat to when the sun comes up." she told herself.

It irked her that he had been able to bait her so effortlessly, but she admitted to herself that he had pushed all the right buttons.

She was sure that her hair, large front teeth and general bookish appearance had been the main reasons why she never had any friendships in her muggle primary school.

"At least if you don't count those "friends" who were only interested in copying my homework" she remembered sourly.

All that had changed of course after the incident with the troll in her first year at Hogwarts- she wasn't the most popular girl in Gryffindor house, but she had true friends now and the teasing had slacked off.

When Hermione entered the living room, she saw her father sitting on the couch, still in his pajamas. He looked up from his Times and smiled.

"Your mum is already out, shopping for god knows what with Mary." he explained. "What about a father- daughter day at the pool? We could just read, talk and." he rose an eyebrow mischievously "have the occasional game on the outdoors chess board."

Wrinkling her nose, amused at his obvious attempt at hoodwinking her into a series of disastrously lost games, Hermione nodded affirmatively nonetheless.

"He might think he can trounce me as easily as last summer, but I'll show him. I'm not a genius at the game, but I think I'm over the slightly distracting memories of the murderous chess board that nearly killed Ron when we went to protect the stone."

After taking a quick shower and intense teeth brushing with the "Dr. Granger approved" method, she donned another of her swimming suits and a bath robe. Grabbing her magical tourist guide from the bed stand, Hermione headed for the breakfast menu.

"I'm going down already, dad!" she called over the rushing of water from the bathroom. "I'll wait for you by the chess board, prepare to be humbled!"

An hour later, after a filling breakfast, Hermione and Charles faced each other on the huge outdoor board. The largest pieces were as high as Hermione shoulders, but they were made of plastic and therefore lightweight.

Her dad opened the game by moving his central pawn two fields forward. Blocking him with her opposing black figure, she smiled cheekily and decided to needle him.

"And here I expected a Ruy Lopez opening gambit. Looks more like a standard tactic to me. I'm disappointed."

Grinning at her words, Charles Granger went on the offensive with his left knight, but refrained from commenting.

"It seems as if he wants to play the first game for real." Hermione decided. "Well, I can do that, and I'll win too."

The next half hour saw them getting more and more involved, neither one speaking a word. She had learnt some advanced strategies from watching Ron winning against Harry again and again, and she tried to use them now.

But her father was experienced enough to see through most of her manoeuvres, and after 45 hard fought minutes, he ended the game with a "check mate" that came out of nowhere.

"Not so sure of yourself any more, eh young lady?" he teased, while they restored the board.

"But you are better than last year, if it's any consolation."

When all pieces were back at their starting positions, Charles walked over to one of the banks standing around the area.

"Come darling, lets sit down for a while and have a little talk, then you'll get your chance for revenge."

Hermione took a place next to him and looked up expectantly.

"You know your mother and I supported your decision to attend Hogwarts, Hermione" Charles Granger began with a unreadable expression.

"Uh, oh" she thought with a sinking feeling in her stomach. "What is this about now? Have they seen through my smokescreens?"

Her worry must have shown, because her father shook his head and smiled reassuringly.

"Don't stress yourself, we wont pull you out of the school as long as you're happy there. But now that you'll start your third year in a few weeks, I have begun to ask myself what will happen when you graduate."

She felt quite confused and unsettled by this statement- after all, Professor McGonagall had talked at length with her parents about the wizarding world when she delivered Hermione's Hogwarts letter.

The Deputy Headmistress had explained the secrets the Grangers would have to keep, but had also mentioned the many job opportunities for people with a good magical education.

"Dad, you know that I can do all kinds of things when I get my NEWTS!" she exclaimed fiercely.

Her father looked taken aback by the vehemence, but before he could get in a word edgewise, a flood of words from his daughters mouth rolled over him.

"I haven't chosen what I want to do, but that's hardly a surprise, is it now? I doubt that many muggle children in my age group know what profession they'll take after graduating."

Charles held up his hands and made calming motions, but his little girl wouldn't let herself be stopped now. Her cheeks had taken on a soft red color and the agitation made her voice louder than was advisable in the middle of a muggle holiday resort.

"If it's so important to you dad, I'll have you know that I made a list of possible jobs last year. On the top of the list is a healer apprenticeship, it would allow me to become the equivalent of a medical doctor. I have also thought about working for the ministry of magic, maybe help them to find better ways of integrating muggleborn children into wizarding society."

She took a deep breath to resupply her lungs for another machine gun like barrage.

"Third place on my list is becoming a teacher. I love Hogwarts, the atmosphere of learning, the fantastic library and I even like most of the professors. And those are only my top three, I have also thought about working in a apothecary or getting my master in potions. There are some other things that would interest me, like magical creatures..."

She stopped herself when she saw her father begin to chuckle, then laugh uncontrollable. Soon he was holding his sides and roaring so loud that some of the other guests began to look over to them.

"How dare he?" Hermione thought indignantly. "I tell him my plans for the future like he wanted, and he goes of on a ridiculous laughing fit!"

She balled her fingers into fists and had to fight herself to remain sitting. After another few bouts of laughter, Charles Granger finally stopped and leaned back, gulping air in like an industrial size cooling machine.

When he looked up and saw Hermione's furious expression, he grabbed her right hand quickly.

"Sorry honey, but your "verbally exploding like Krakatoa" act is priceless." he said. "I wasn't talking about your future job at all, you totally misunderstood..."

Her eyes went wide in surprise and some of the agitation vanished from her expression. "But what did you mean? The most important thing after finishing school will be to choose a profession, won't it?"

Charles shook his head. "Sure, its important for your mum and me that you have a fulfilling job that also pays for your living. But that's not as important as the question that worries me the most..."

He hesitated, and the skin on his forehead scrunched up, as if he was thinking hard.

"It's not easy to formulate darling, but basically, I'm scared that you will become more and more … distant. You'll be socialised in the wizarding world for seven years by then, you'll have a job that'll make you do magic every day... I'm scared that you will become something like an emigrant in your own land, estranged not only from the "muggle" way of life..."

He paused for a moment, as if it pained him to end the sentence "but also from us."

Hermione sat there for a long moment, unblinking, trying to process her fathers words. When the implications finally began to sink in, it felt like huge gates in her subconsciousness had suddenly opened up, and she couldn't identify all the feelings that began to run amok in her mind.

There was guilt for never even thinking about this, worry if her dad was right, nostalgia for a time not too long ago when there was only one world she belonged to. And finally, a fierce resolve to not only placate her father right now, but to make absolutely sure that his fears wouldn't become reality after all.

"Oh dad!" she cried, before she threw her arms around him and hugged him as tight as she could.

"You know that I love you and mum with all my heart! I promise you, I'll never ever let that happen to me. I'll be with you always!" Hermione felt her dads arms come around her, returning the hug, and relieve flooded her.

She never saw the deep doubt and worry hidden in Mr. Grangers eyes.

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	2. Justly deserved holidays Chapter 2

**Author's note July 2012**: Reworked for readability.

Disclaimer: JK Rowling and some mega- corporations own "Harry Potter". I do not, and I'm not making any money with this story.

Part one

Justly deserved holidays

**Chapter Two**

Four days later, the Granger family was on board their Volvo, driving on a highway leading north- they would arrive in Paris in the early evening.

The rest of their stay at the resort near Nice had been very calm and recuperating, mostly idle hours at the pool or the beach, only broken by a few short trips to tourist attractions in the vicinity.

Hermione was intensely studying her travel guide again, marking sites she wanted to see in magical Paris, while Charles and Miriam amused themselves with counting the holes and bumps in overtaking cars.

"That one has at least three on the front alone!" Charles said, pointing at a red Citroen that was speeding by.

"It's really another mentality, isn't it?" his wife asked with a faraway look. "Cars aren't seen as protrusions of your own social standing and ego here, but as objects you use, and then use up."

The last sentence had penetrated Hermione's concentration, and she decided that this was an opening for one of the philosophical discussions she had with her parents from time to time.

"Why would you consider it a positive trait to see the objects around you as something you just use up? Couldn't that behavior lead you to treat people the same way?" she objected pointedly.

Her mum turned around in her seat and gave her a brilliant smile.

"Ah, you are back with us darling. I thought that line would get you out of your book for a few moments!"

Hermione got an outraged look on her face, but before she could find the words to counter her mum's antics, her father intervened mockingly. "Stop teasing her Miri and answer the question- that is if you can."

"Very well- let's see... in my view, objectification of people is a danger for those of us who see things like cars as part of their own person, as some kind of "proof" for their status, or even as an emotional crutch. This kind of thinking estranges you from the people around you, it produces a mindset of "the more I have, the more I am".

"From there, it's only a small step to do the same thing with other human beings. Your spouse, your children, the people working for you- they sooner or later become a part of your ego, not in form of an emotional connection, not love or kindness, but possession and control."

Hermione looked thoughtful for a minute, letting her mums argument pass through her mind again. Then she fired her well prepared next salvo.

"If you are right mum, why does this car here" she patted the seat beside her. "look like it's fresh out of the assembly line, while it's actually five years old already?"

While her mum looked gobsmacked by the way Hermione had turned her own argument around against her, Charles had a hard time holding the steering wheel steady- he was laughing so hard that his whole upper body was shaking.

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While her parents were conducting the check in at the counter, Hermione sat down in one of the black leather couches scattered around the huge lobby of the Hotel Ritz Paris, and tried to take it all in.

The hotel had a reputation for luxury, but the few pictures she had seen in muggle travel books hadn't done it justice.

Marble floors and Hellenic columns dominated the visible architecture, mahogany furnishings gave the impression of sophistication, while golden chandeliers lighted the room and crystal glass doors led deeper into the building.

The personal was wearing bright red uniforms- but the other guests were even more interesting.

She saw a group of deeply tanned man in traditional Arabian garb having a loud discussion, wildly gesticulating and thereby letting everyone around having a good look at their golden Rolex watches.

Businessman in severe suits, most of them holding leather cases, paced through the hall, undoubtedly on their way to important negotiations.

In contrast to their unheeding hurry, some of the people around seemed to be here only to socialise.

There was a very aristocratic older pair sitting on a couch near her. Their clothing looked like it's price alone could've fed an Ethiopian family for a decade, not to mention their glittering jewellery.

Leaning against one of the massive pillars at the other side of the lobby was a beautiful young women in an obviously expensive - and pretty revealing - dress, who seemed bored with her surroundings.

"I wonder if she is what they call a "hostess" in the mysteries?" Hermione thought agitatedly.

She started to feel ill at ease in this place of splendour, it appeared like smoke and mirrors, as if it was obfuscating some ugly reality - she wished her parents would come back and take her to their rooms.

She decided to walk over to them, to see what was taking them so long, when something changed. Hermione couldn't pin it down, it felt as if the atmosphere had been suddenly charged with electricity.

Casting her eyes around, she observed that even the muggles must have taken notice, because every single male in the room straightened their posture and turned in the direction of the revolving door that marked the entrance to the hotel.

There, seemingly oblivious to the stares, was a family of four, a couple and their two daughters.

They were wearing flowing, silken garments and strange pointed hats, and that alone would've let them stand out like a sore tooth, but the really shocking thing wasn't the eccentricity of their clothing, but the earth shattering beauty of the mother and her older child.

In general, Hermione wasn't much interested in outward appearances, but to her surprise, she couldn't take her eyes from the strange family.

If the stories about the ancient Greek gods were true, Athena and Venus would have had a hard time looking more intoxicating than those two women.

Their blond hair was shining like spun gold, their features had an unearthly, angelic symmetry and their bodies - Hermione nearly choked when she found herself checking out two females - would make every muggle supermodel green with envy.

Ignoring the greedy looks that were cast their way, the family moved over to the counter, and after a few seconds Hermione remembered that she wanted to find her parents.

She forcefully stopped her staring and set herself in motion. She spotted her mum and dad at the end of the counter, her mother was just pocketing a set of keys while her father instructed a young man in hotel uniform about their luggage.

Not 15 feet away, the only man in that strange family of semi- goddesses was having an animated discussion with the concierge, while his wife was whispering something to her younger daughter and the older one gave the room full of bewitched man a disdainful look.

A thought shot through Hermione's mind. "Bewitched- that's it! They are a wizarding family, and there is some kind of beauty charm on them! What are they doing in a muggle hotel? Who are they?"

Before she could gather her wits in the face of this revelation, her mother touched her shoulder and asked her if she was all right. She could only nod silently, while she still gazed at the magical people in front of her in wonderment.

"Lets go up to our suite darling, you look like you're asleep on your feet."

Although she wanted desperately to speak with the wizarding family, Hermione was painfully aware of her lacking skill in the French language.

Even more important seemed the fact that it would be very rude to just walk over to them and confront them about their magical origins in the midst of dozens of muggles.

"I'll have to find a better way to speak with them, hopefully they'll stay for a few days." she resolved.

Then her parents led her to the lifts and they made their way to the suite they would live in for the coming week.

It was a very nice setting, even larger than the one they had at the resort in Nicce ,and definitely more luxurious. The furniture was of rare quality and the suite didn't look like the rooms were part of a hotel at all.

Only fifteen minutes after the luggage boy carried her suitcase into her room, Hermione fell down on her bed. She was exhausted from the long drive and the excitement of meeting a magical family in a muggle hotel, and so she drifted of to sleep quickly.

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When she awoke the next morning, Hermione had vague memories of a disturbing dream floating around her head.

She couldn't remember any specifics, but she was quite sure that beautiful blond hair and the most charming of faces had played a prominent role in the nightly rumblings of her brain. After a few minutes of laying dazed on her bed, she brushed the half-remembered pictures away, stood up and walked into her bathroom.

"Here I am, in the midst of Paris, a full week of sightseeing in the muggle and wizarding world ahead, and all I can do is fighting of dream images? Pathetic!"

She showered, threw on a practical Jeans/Sweater combination and went resolutely into the living room to wait for Charles and Miriam.

After the Grangers had a breakfast of the highest quality in the Ritz's restaurant, they made their way outside to the next Metro station.

Hermione hadn't seen the mysterious magical family in the restaurant, but the disappointment soon vanished when she began to lay out her plans for the day to her parents.

"First, we should visit the muggle Centre of the city." she pronounced with surety.

"I thought we may take a walk down the Champs Elysée towards the Arc de Triomphe. My travel guide says it's one of the most impressive streets in the western world, and not only because of the shopping possibilities either."

Her father smiled mildly at her enthusiasm, and soon they were on their way.

When they emerged from the Metro, Hermione felt her breath catch in her lungs.

In front of her was a street nearly 150 feet wide, that stretched seemingly endlessly in eastern and western direction. Thousands of people mingled around, doing their shopping, sitting in cafés or just enjoying the scenery, like the Grangers.

They took their time, lingering here and there, walking with a leisurely pace towards the great Arc of Triumph in the distance.

When they got there, after more than two hours, Hermione began to explain the bronze castings that covered the huge buildings walls.

She had to raise her voice because the cars driving madly around the plaza surrounding the Arc de Triomphe produced an ear shattering noise level.

From there they made their way southwards, reached the Pallais de Chaillot and crossed the Seine in front of the Tour Eiffel.

"What a brilliant example of muggle engineering" Hermione thought, looking up the gigantic steel construction. "Sure, I have seen higher buildings, like TV or radio towers, but this is something else! It was build for one purpose only, to show what human beings could do with the materials and tools of the industrial age."

After waiting in line for half an hour, the Grangers boarded one of the escalators of the tower, but when they reached the highest observation platform, Hermione had to take her fathers hand before she dared a look over the railing.

Her fear of heights had been the reason why she didn't like to ride magical brooms, but here, on a secure building of steel, she finally let go and could appreciate the far reaching view.

Their next stop was the Hotel des Invalides , where Napoleon Bonaparte had found his last resting place. Hermione's cheeks were slightly red with excitement when she stood before the impressive tomb, and she eagerly whispered an explanation to her parents.

"Napoleon was much more than a muggle general and ruler! He was in fact born into a very large and old magical family here in France, and he lived the first years of his life as member of the wizarding world."

While she told the story, her voice grew louder, and her mum reminded her that they were still in a muggle church. She reduced her volume and went straight on with the impromptu history lesson.

"When he got older, and never showed any signs of magical ability, his family became suspicious that he might be a squib. They tested him, and when they were sure of it, they cast him out!"

Hermione had to struggle to keep her voice low and her anger about the historical injustice showed clearly in her scrunched up forehead and her furiously blinking eyes.

"Can you imagine how barbaric some wizarding families were even in the late 18th century? They made an 11 year old child into an outcast, obliviated - that means erased - all connections to their family out of his memory, and send him to life with a muggle family in Corsica."

She looked up to her parents expectantly, but Charles and Miriam's faces showed only confusion.

Finally, her mum summed up their puzzlement.

"Even if the magical account of Napoleons early history is true, why is it important? After all, he lived and worked and fought in the muggle world for the rest of his life, didn't he?"

Hermione shook her head forcefully. "No, not at all! Why do you think Napoleon had the drive to succeed in everything he did? Why was he such a master on the field of battle?"

Her parents looked more confused then ever.

"The answer is, he met an old wizard on Corsica shortly before his new muggle family could send him of to the French military. That old man detected that someone had manipulated young Napoleons mind, and he helped him to regain his memories. Do you see now?"

After a few seconds, Charles began to nod in understanding.

"What you want to tell us, is that Napoleon fought his way to the emperor's throne, started all those wars, and devastated huge parts of Europe, just because he wanted revenge against his family, because he wanted to show them his worth?"

His daughter gave him a hug.

"You've got it right, dad. In the wizarding World, Napoleon is only known as "The mad squib". He even had a few criminal wizards on his side and he was only defeated when wizards and witches began to fight against him in earnest."

"Well, well" her father mused after digesting this information. "It would seem as if the wizarding world isn't too different from the muggle one where emotions are concerned. And if I remember the long list of "Dark Lords" you rattled down last summer, when you tried to explain magical wars, they don't learn from their errors either."

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Two days later, Hermione was taking her morning shower and groaned under her breath, while she massaged her hurting calves.

The Granger family had tried to make the most out of the last 48 hours, and the long ways they had walked from one famous historical sight to the next were taking their toll on her.

Hermione wished she could use her wand to try a pain depleting charm she had read about in one of her private study books, but, alas, even here in France she was still forbidden to do that by magical law.

Regardless of the muscle soreness, she didn't regret one minute of the past days, because she had seen so many interesting, impressive and colourful vistas.

From the medieval cathedral of Notre Dame, to the Louvre with it's uncountable cultural riches, from the beautiful but megalomaniac castle of Versailles to the starting point of the French revolution, the remnants of the Bastille, it had been a whirlwind of fascinating impressions.

"Today is the last day scheduled for exploring muggle Paris" she thought excitedly. "Tomorrow we'll visit magical France for the first time! I can't wait!"

With this happy musing in the forefront of her mind, Hermione went down to the Ritz's restaurant for breakfast, escorted by her parents.

She was so deep in her own world, that she didn't notice anything amiss, until she had filled her plate with the delicious French food and began to walk over to her families table.

A very broad shouldered, fat muggle stood in her way and didn't even react when she politely asked him to let her pass. He kept his place, staring open mouthed in one direction as if he'd been struck by a Petrificus totalus.

More alert now, she listened to her senses and they made her aware that something unusual was going on. The whole feeling of the room was somehow wrong.

She followed the muggle's line of sight, and finally her eyes caught the reason for his strange behavior.

Only 20 feet away from her, a family including two demigoddesses was having their morning meal.

The mother and her older daughter hadn't lost any of their magical attraction, and Hermione had to shake her head a few times to clear it.

"So, they are still here, not only staying in a muggle hotel, but carelessly mingling with them - and that while they have put some charm on themselves that drives most members of the male gender nearly crazy. What are they thinking?"

A wave of anger rose inside her, and before she could form a coherent plan of action, she strode over to their table and asked the older women in a hushed and angry tone. "Exuse moi, parlez vous anglais?"

The beautiful blond, Hermione thought she looked about 40 years old, tilted her head in a lazy and slightly provocative gesture.

Ignoring Hermione, she addressed her daughter in a low melodious drawl.

"Look what ve àve 'ere Fleur, ma cherie. A little English witch, furious in 'er jealous zeal against those of superior beauty and charm."

The gorgeous girl - obviously Fleur - didn't answer her mother, but she shot Hermione a look so full of disdain, that she felt as if a red hot iron had been plunged into her heart.

"What is it about her that unsettles me so much?" she thought frantically.

Gathering her Gryffindor courage, Hermione turned back to the older witch.

"You may insult me as much as you want, Madame, but I think I have every right to question what exactly you are doing here! The Statute of Secrecy is enforced by the French Ministry of Magic, or am I mistaken?"

The women looked surprised for a moment, then she leaned back in her chair and laughed as if she had been told a good joke. Although the witche's voice sounded like heavenly music, Hermione could still detect the scorn underlying it.

She blushed and had to force herself to remain at the table, wishing with all her might for the terrible, humiliating laughter to end.

Finally, the women got hold of herself and her mirth subsided. She took a deep breath and let her shining blue eyes settle on Hermione again.

"You are a foreigner in this country, child. Didn't your parents teach you any manners? You come 'ere and insult me and my family, without even knowing who we are."

She paused a moment, and Hermione opened her mouth to defend herself, but the women just raised her right hand and send her a forbidding look.

"To your information, my 'usband" she tilted her head in the direction of the man, who appeared to be slightly amused by the confrontation "is the undersecretary to the French Minister of Magic."

Gulping, Hermione realised that she was in a situation that went far over her head, and she began to terribly regret her brashness, but the beautiful witch was just starting with her tongue lashing.

"You, little girl, might 'ave assumed that we are 'ere for - ah, what is the English word - muggle baiting" She shook her head and disgust showed on her lovely features.

"As if we of the ancient and famous DeLacoure line could ever sink that low. I assure you that our presence 'ere is in accordance with French and international magical law." She nodded as if to amplify the importance of her words, then shot a look over to Charles' and Miriam's table- their obvious alarm must have given her a clue whose offspring she faced.

"Before you trot back to your obviously crude and unsophisticated parents, like the eager puppy you are, I will give you one, eh, 'ìnt. The next time you are in that wet and windy rustic excuse for a castle you British use for a wizarding school, go to the library and look up the term "Veela" in a book about magical creatures."

She gave Hermione a false smile that was still brilliant enough to charm an eunuch, then she moved her hand as if to swat away a fly and said in an ice cold tone. "You are excused. Don't bother us again."

Fighting back tears, Hermione turned around and all but fled to her parents table. She never saw the look of pity the girl named Fleur cast after her retreating form.

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Hermione's mood was subdued when she left the Hotel with Charles and Miriam a few hours later.

Not only had she made a fool out of herself, and had gotten a harsh verbal trashing from the wife of the second most influential man in wizarding France. No, once they were back in their suite, and her parents had forced her to tell them what had transpired, the Grangers had given her a severe scolding too.

They didn't really understand what had provoked her actions in the first place, and so they focused on the scene their daughter had made in the middle of a high class restaurant.

When they were through casting around the classical parental adjectives of disapproval - like "disappointed", "immature" or "embarrassing"-, Hermione had cried in shame.

A bit later, when everyone had cooled down a bit, Charles and Miriam decided to let the incident go, so that they could all enjoy the last days of their vacation.

They took the Metro again, and soon arrived at the foot of the stairs leading up to the famous Sacre Coeur, a church build solely with white marble stones.

Climbing up, Charles shot pictures from time to time and the family fended off the seemingly omnipresent souvenir traders. After they took a look at the church's magnificent interior, Hermione led her parents to the backside of the huge building, where the world famous Montmatre, the artists quarter of Paris, began.

From the border of the district, the Grangers were sucked into a maze of small, winkled alleys, and soon Hermione forgot her gloominess.

Nearly every house held at least one small gallery, or smoky artist café, and all free place was used to present some form of art, be it a painting, abstract statues or fantastically ornamented pottery.

She was amazed by the variety of stiles and the wide range of quality, which went from truly stunning to amateurish and mediocre.

The people flooding around the Montmartre were as diverse as the art presented, bohemian man in billowing cloaks mingled with camera toting Japanese tourists, and young art students of Sorbonne university presented their works to clochards and smartly dressed businessman alike.

Taking their time, Hermione and her parents strolled through the crowds, enjoying the uniqueness of the place and halting here or there to admire an especially brilliant piece of creativity.

Quite suddenly, the street they were following opened up to a small square that was populated by dozens of portrait painters. Working back to back with their competition in small open air studios, mostly just two chairs and a drawing board or easel, they gave the impression of a surreal art factory.

Before Hermione had a chance to take it all in, her mother grabbed her right hand and started to pull her forward.

"Isn't this a great place darling?" Miriam enthused. "Now we only have to find the best one of them, and we can take a hand made picture of you back home. Wouldn't that be a great souvenir?"

Hermione's first reaction was to refuse outright - she couldn't imagine many things she would like less than to sit model for an artist, only to get a portrait of her plain face - buckteeth and messy hair included.

She turned to her mum and opened her mouth to protest the ridiculous idea, but the determined expression on Miriam's face stopped her in her tracks.

"Oh no, I know that look." she thought desperately. "It's all fixed in her mind and I would bet my wand that she has already planned where to hang the damn thing."

Resigning herself to hours of motionless sitting under the probing - and probably quite disgusted - eyes of a Parisian artist, she nodded her reluctant consent.

Her father, who had been left behind by her mums wild dash, caught up with them and the three started an inspection of the available painters. Many of them used only pencils for their drawings, but a select few considered themselves good enough to offer portraits in oil colours.

When her mother stopped at the stand of one of those, Hermione decided to draw a line.

"Mum, you can't be serious! Do you know how long it would take for him to make ones of those" - she pointed to the few examples the man presented for his customers - "with my face on it? We could be here the whole day!"

Huffing in exasperation, Miriam started a scorching reply, but Hermione's luck turned, when her dad decided to intervene on her behalf.

"Miri, I think Hermione is quite right. If you want an oil portrait, you could always order one back home. A pencil drawing will be a nice enough souvenir."

Miriam was a bit put out by her husbands words, but in the end she gave in, and they began to search for an appropriate artist again.

They found what they were looking for in one secluded part of the square, where an old man with long white hair, covered by the typical French barrette style hat, had set up his stand.

He appeared to be very nice, with laugh wrinkles in the corners of his keen eyes, and the two pictures he used as examples of his Oeuvre were of indisputable quality, nearly photo realistic.

Charles introduced them in French and asked for the price of his services. The sketcher - his name was Maurice - didn't barter long, and they settled on 450 Franc for an upper body portrait.

Hermione sat down in the model's place and followed the painter's gestured directions for her position. After several minutes of tilting her head in different angles and shuffling back and forth in the chair, he was finally satisfied, and she prepared herself for a long, tortures time of holding still.

"Where is a basilisk when you need one?" she asked herself grumpily.

While Maurice began his work, her dad excused himself, but she had the suspicion that the threat of boredom was driving him away much more than the need for a loo.

Her mum took a place next to the artist and sat in silence for a few minutes, alternately observing the painter drawing the first outline on his paper, and her daughters face.

"I think this picture will be a very nice thing to have in the coming years." Miriam said in a conversational tone. "You are beginning to change so fast, darling, growing up from my little girl to become a young, beautiful women."

Hermione had to take a hold of herself not to flinch when she heard such a grotesque misrepresentation of her appearance, but something must've shown in her eyes, because her mum continued with much more gravity.

"You might not believe me now, but soon you will have proof of my words through the interest the boys will show you. If I'm not much mistaken, it has already started - Kevin Rutherford gave you a once over, didn't he?"

Feeling her stomach begin to knot painfully, Hermione came to the conclusion that this was a "mother - daughter heart to heart" of the worst sort.

"And due to this infernal portrait painting, I can't even tell her that she has it all wrong!" she thought in agitation. "I'm as "beautiful" as a wallflower and that slug Rutherford was just a low- life pig bursting with hormones!"

After a slight pause, as if to give Hermione the chance to ponder her words, her mum continued in her monologue.

"Sometimes you really baffle me, darling. Before you went to Hogwarts, you were some kind of bookish tomboy - if that's not an oxymoron - and now that you begin to flower as a women, you still believe all the nasty things that cruel children told you about yourself."

Shaking her head slowly, Miriam let a sad smile play around her lips and brushed away a few wisps of hair the soft Parisian summer breeze had blown in her face.

"Very soon, even your friends Ron and Harry will notice that you are a girl, and that will produce all sorts of complications. You can't run from yourself, darling - I wished you would let me help you".

Letting her mum "help her" was the farthest from Hermione's mind at the moment. She was seething and doubted that she could take another five minutes of this enforced muteness.

"I can't believe her!" she fumed. "This whole portrait thing was just a set-up so that she could bother me again with her ideas of teenage crushes and proper puberty!"

While Hermione and her mum loved each other dearly, they had never seen eye to eye about certain things, like the time she was allowed with her books, the mostly non-existent "friends" of her early childhood, or - since last year, when her period had set in - love and the other gender.

"As if I could ever be interested in playing those teen-girl games of dressing up, painting your face like some mannequin or "dating" one boy today and the next tomorrow!"

She felt repulsed by the mere thought of it.

"There are so many things to learn and to explore, and there are also Harry and Ron and our friendship."

A shiver ran down her spine when one last thought manifested itself, one of her deepest fears.

"Maybe... just maybe, Voldemort will return. He has tried it once before with the philosopher's stone. I have no time for silliness!"

Miriam watched her daughter intensely, and tried to read at least part of her emotions from her eyes alone.

"I'm not surprised that you are angry with me, but I had the feeling you should hear some things without the chance to transform a very personal chat into a general debate about "useless dating rituals", or whatever other distraction you would come up with."

She smiled briefly, remembering their last "mother-daughter" talk, but soon her expression turned grave again.

"The reality is, your mind might be much more developed than that of most of your peers, but your body - it will have it's way with you regardless. Hormones can't be trumped by intellect, darling."

She let her last words hang in the air for a few minutes, while a multitude of feelings played over her features. Hermione identified worry, doubt, hope and finally resolve, before her mother spoke again, this time in a much gentler voice.

"The events of this morning gave my thoughts in regard to this whole problem a push in a totally new direction."

Miriam stopped again, as if she was steeling herself for her next words.

"I have no experience with this at all, I may well be absolutely wrong... but could it be that your reactions to that family were not so much motivated by simple anger at them, but by... fear of your own feelings? After all, the Delacour girl is quite lovely..."

A hammer blow to her head couldn't have stunned Hermione more than her mothers last words. She felt herself getting numb inside and for an indefinable time, she sat there, blind and deaf to her surroundings.

She was startled out of this inner state of limbo, when her mum got up, came over to her and put a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

"Honey, even if I'm right about this, there is no reason for you to fret. You know that your dad and I love you very much and that nothing will ever change that."

Rubbing her daughters back gently, Miriam continued to whisper softly, and Hermione's brain unfroze and began to work with frantic speed.

"What if she's right? Do I like girls in that way?"

She had never thought about it before, had never even given the possibility any consideration. Why would she, who wasn't interested in dating anyone, give a second thought to the laughable notion that she could love her own gender?

"It can't be true anyway, what about the crush I had on Professor Lockhardt last year?"

She felt a wave of relief begin to flood her, but then an unbidden, hazy image of golden blond hair rose out of the depths of her subconscious.

The significance of that dream picture was much clearer now, and her attempts to suppress it again were fruitless. She couldn't deny any longer what her sleeping mind had tried to tell her two days ago.

"Maybe mum is really on to something I never knew about me myself." Hermione admitted to herself with a heavy heart.

The next half hour of the portrait drawing flew by, while the young witch tried to organise her thoughts and sort through her feelings.

Her mother had returned to her seat and kept silent, just giving her a comforting smile from time to time.

"How can it be that I never noticed attractive girls before? Isn't that a sure sign that I'm straight?" she reflected. "But on the other hand, maybe that charm the Delacourts have about them broke open a dormant part of me?"

Hermione resolved to thoroughly research the subject before she talked to her mum again. She hated confusion and inner turmoil, and only a planned and well structured examination of both her own emotions, and the available information about same-sex relationships, would help her overcome the distress from which she was suffering now.

Eventually, Charles returned from his excursion, and walked up behind the artist to check on his progress.

"Wow! That is a phenomenal work!"

He smiled brightly at his daughter, and seeing the piercing glance she send in his direction, decided to tease her.

"Maurice here must be a wizard, he has conjured a smile on your portrait, while you sit there looking as if someone has died."

He stepped behind Miriam's chair and entertained them with the story of his search for a working toilet in bohemian cafes.

"Maybe the proprietors don't need one" he joked ."After all, most of their costumers seem to nurse a single coffee forever."

Another quarter of an hour passed before the painter finished his work, signing it in a flourish.

He turned the easel around and watched Hermione expectantly. She had to admit that it was a good likeness of her, but that was, of course, part of the problem.

Faking a smile for Maurice's benefit, she got up, stretched for a moment and thanked him when he rolled up the paper and handed it to her. Her dad paid for the drawing, then the three left the old man in his corner and were on their way again, roaming the Montmatre in a relaxed pace.

Hermione was too deep in thought to do more than follow her parents around. She didn't take in much of the sights for the rest of the day, and hadn't said more than ten sentences to Miriam and Charles when they arrived back at the hotel that evening.

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The soft glow of the great fireplace was the only light illuminating the Gryffindor common room.

Hermione was alone, snuggled down on one of the couches near the fire, her favourite book "Hogwarts- a history" open on her lap. Comforted by the familiar environment, she closed her eyes with a content sigh.

She was save in here, protected from malicious Slytherins and her own confusion alike. Nothing could hurt her, no one could disturb the peace she sought, as long as she stayed in the calm the room offered.

Time went by, but she didn't care if it were minutes or days. All she wanted was the relaxed peace she had found here at uncounted occasions, when the unruly masses of her classmates had retired to the dormitories for the night.

The rest of the school knew mostly her eager, assiduous side, and she was mocked for it, but from time to time even a "know-it-all bookworm" needed a refuge from her own restlessness - the late evenings in the common room gave it to her.

Hermione twitched when the serene quiet was broken by a slight sound - the portrait of the fat lady was letting someone in!

She opened her eyes warily, but couldn't make out the one who must've broken curfew to come back this late.

The person stood near the entrance, wrapped in shadows, and dread began to rise in her.

"Who are you, show yourself!" Hermione challenged, but her vocal cords produced only a croak that sounded tiny and intimidated in her own ears.

Nonetheless, the noise seemed to affect the intruder, because he - or she - began to move slowly in her direction. They had a flowing gait, graceful but somehow alarming.

Shrinking back against the backrest of her sofa, she prepared to bolt at the first sign of real danger, but when her nightly visitor finally reached the circle of light around the fire, her breath faltered.

The vision before her was an embodiment of perfection, long blond hair falling down an elegantly curved neck in golden waves. Blue eyes deeper than the deepest sea stared at her, and the most delightful smile played about red lips.

"èllo èrmione." the apparition whispered, the velvety sounds of her voice wafting around the petrified young witch like the essence of a rose garden in summer.

She couldn't move a muscle, couldn't breath, couldn't even tear her eyes from the angelic face in front of her, and so she didn't even flinch when Fleur DeLacour touched her cheek softly.

"I àve waited a long time for this moment." the French demigoddess declared, then she bend down to Hermione's motionless face.

Their lips touched, softly at first, but soon a fervent duel of hot tongues ensured and the scorching kiss blew away her sanity like a tornado...

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Waking up with a start, Hermione found herself entangled in her sweaty covers and moaned in frustration. She didn't know if it was because her dream had ended prematurely, or because she had dreamed of the French girl at all.

Growling, she hit her pillow, then threw it across the room, where it impacted the wall with a satisfying thump.

"Mum may be right about my feelings, but I really don't need this!" she raged to herself.

Having what amounted to a "wet dream" about Fleur Delacour went against her self image as a controlled and sober young witch, but what brought her ire to the boiling point was the knowledge that her dream-self had actually enjoyed abandoning her defences.

"Well, there is nothing to be done about it now, so I'll better get on with the day" she decided, and left her bed grumpily.

Once in the shower, she remembered that today was the great day. She would see magical Paris for the first time! The excitement won over quickly, and her bad mood evaporated like a drop of water in the Sahara.

Back in her own room, she rummaged through her suitcase, until she found the Hogwarts dress robes she had taken with her solely for this occasion. She put them in a small duffel bag and changed into one of her beloved - and sensible - Jeans/Sweater combinations.

Standing over her opened luggage, she hesitated.

"Should I take my wand with me or not?" she pondered.

Sure, she wouldn't been able to use it legally, but she had gathered some first hand knowledge about the hidden dangers of the magical world, even in supposedly "save" places like Hogwarts.

Making up her mind, she tucked her wand into her duffel and set out to wake her parents.

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Authors Note: This is the first half of what I had originally planned as the third and last chapter of „Justly deserved holidays". It's not as long as the first two chapters, but the second half (new 4th chapter) will arrive shortly and compensate for that. I would like to thank everyone who has read and reviewed this story until now, I hope you like the direction I take with it starting with the events in this chapter.


	3. Justly deserved holidays  Chapter 3

Authors Note: This is the first half of what I had originally planned as the third and last chapter of „Justly deserved holidays". It's not as long as the first two chapters, but the second half (new 4th chapter) will arrive shortly and compensate for that. I would like to thank everyone who has read and reviewed this story until now, I hope you like the direction I take with it starting with the events in this chapter.

Part 1

Justly deserved holidays

Chapter 3

Hermione had a hard time curbing her anticipation, while Charles, Miriam and herself walked down the Boulevard St. Michelle towards the Palais du Luxembourg. All she could do was stop herself from jumping up and down in joy. Soon they would enter the wizarding world in Paris, and if her magical travel guide was any indication, they would visit a location at least as impressive as Diagon Alley.

Only a few minutes had gone bye when they reached the high wall surrounding the wide gardens of the Palais and she began to count her steps. The guide said that the enchanted entrance to the centre of wizarding France was positioned at a point exactly a hundred feet along the wall, of course invisible to the countless muggles passing it every hour. "98, 99, 100! Here we are!" she cried in excitement.

Her mom and dad smiled understandingly, accustomed to their little girls regular storms of enthusiasm when it came to magic. In front of them was a seemingly normal section of the wall, but before they could ask about the entrance, Hermione went forward and touched its surface with her right hand. The stone facade in front of their eyes glimmered shortly and a large door appeared. It was nearly ten feet high, made of ancient looking and very massive oak planks, and the solid iron mountings wouldn't have been out of place at the gate of a 13th century stronghold.

Taking a step back, Hermione pulled out a piece of parchment covered with her neat script, and read it for a moment in concentration. "It's important to pronounce the password exactly, or it wont open." she explained. "That's why I have the current one written down in phonetics." She smiled brightly. "I think most French wizards and witches would be appalled if they knew that the gateway to Diagon Alley is a dingy old pub like the Leaky Cauldron. The ministry here is quite proud of their system of yearly rotating passwords. It's not just announced either, you have to solve a complicated riddle they publish in the magical newspapers and travel guides to get it."

Facing the door again, she spoke in a loud and clear voice. "Mundus vult decepi" and the gate opened with a resounding clang. When she looked over her shoulder to check her parents reaction to this display of verbal magic, she caught sight of an unusual air distortion some meters behind them, but when she squinted her eyes to get a better look at that strange field of glittering colors the phenomenon was gone. Shrugging her shoulders, she turned around again and took her first step into magical France.

Entering, the Grangers found themselves in a small chamber- the floor and walls were covered by the same very old oak wood that gave the entrance door its sturdy appearance. Even Hermione was baffled when she couldn't see another exit to the room. Where was the famous "coer de magique" of France? The only furnishing in the space was a small table with a handsome black haired man in a curious red robe sitting behind it. "Welcome to the Place de Nostradamus!" he greeted them in perfect English. "You are the first British guests o come this way for a few days. I'm Pierre, may I offer you my assistance?"

Hermione smiled and walked up to the information table, her parents following in her wake. "Good day to you!" the young witch greeted cordially. "We would like to visit the Place, but first, would you mind if I ask how you knew that we're British?" The man grinned delightedly. "A young witch fast on the uptake, I like that." he complimented. "To answer your question, we have an observation charm on the gate. It's there to make sure that no muggleborns under the age of eleven -who might discover the entrance by chance- can slip in with legitimate visitors like you." Hermione nodded her understanding. "Would old Tom in his chaotic pub be up to that task?" she wondered.

"If you want to purchase some of Frances high quality magical products" Pierre continued "I would advise you to buy one of our "Amulettes de Babylon"." He bent down to his right side, fumbled with something for a moment, and came up with a small pendant in his hand. It seemed to be made of white marble and one side was covered by complex, carved in runes.

"It's not expensive -just eight Galleons- and enables you to understand and read French, regardless of your mother language. Everyone you talk to will hear you speak in our beautiful tongue- it works on muggles too. We guarantee six months of constant use before the charms begin to wear off." To say that she was astonished would have been an understatement. "I didn't even know that something like that is possible! Now I have just to persuade mom and dad!"

Turning around, she gave her father her best beseeching look. "I think that would be really helpful dad. I could use it not only here, but with the French muggles too! Please, lets get one of those!" Charles gave his wife a short questioning glance, but when Miriam just shrugged, he nodded and took out a pouch with the wizarding currency left over from their last trip to Diagon Alley. He counted out the required number of gold coins and handed them to the guardian of the gate. In her eagerness, Hermione nearly ripped the medallion from the young mans hands. She slipped it over her head and tucked it under her sweater, before she addressed Pierre again, to her parents astonishment and her own near ecstasy in unaccented French. "Thank you for your help, have a nice day!" He gave her another of his rather charming smiles. "It was a pleasure young Miss, I wish you and your parents an enjoyable stay." He tapped his wand against a worn spot on the table, and another heavy door appeared at the opposite side of the room.

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When she emerged from the checkpoint, Hermione found herself at the periphery of magical Frances pulsating heart. It was almost too much to take in, too many impressions to sort at once. The Place de Nostradamus was a wide square, each side with a length of about 600 feet. Hundreds of wizards and witches could be seen, hurrying in all directions. They wore clothes in every color of the rainbow, and she felt herself reminded of the tropical fish she had seen in an aquarium once. Staying rooted to the ground in front of the door that had let her to this place of wonders, the young British witch couldn't refrain from comparing this sight with her first visit to Diagon Alley. It was at least as overwhelming, but in a dramatically different way. Where magical London's main street was a winding maze that gave the impression of a small town in its own right, wizarding Paris was one gigantic architectural unit that could easily keep up with muggle locations like Trafalgar square or St. Peter`s Square.

She could see from one end of the Place to the other and the hustle and bustle defied description. It was mostly centered on the edges of the square, where long arcades held rows of businesses like beads strung on a thread. A few landmark buildings stood out of the mass of shops and attracted her eyes. There was the Ministry of Magic, a massive building of intimidating grey granite walls and small, embrasure like windows, taking up nearly half of the Place's length on the side opposite to her position. The revolving doors in its front circled endlessly, regulating a constant stream of employees and civilians entering or leaving the political center of magical France. If she remembered the maps she had studied correctly, the ministry was on the western side of the square. She turned left to search for Gringotts, and sure enough, there was the wizarding bank, dominating the southern section with its white marble pillars and rows of customers.

Turning to her right and gazing north, she soon found an institution she envied the French magical population with all her heart. The "Bibliotheque general de magie" had no equivalent in magical Britain. It housed an edition of every single book ever written by French speaking wizards or witches, and in addition an enormous amount of works from other nations. When she'd first read about this facility, she had rubbed her eyes in disbelief. Why wasn't there such a wonderful building in her own community? Reading every book you ever wanted for an insignificant small fee was a brilliant idea! After some rereading of "Hogwarts- a history" she was quite sure that British publishing houses disagreed with her on this- in the 1870s they had fought bitterly against the proposition to include a few dozen copies of the current reading lists in the schools library. A public reading hall which made all their books accessible to anyone would've cut into their profits even more, making it unpalatable to them and their political friends.

Hermione's gaze drifted back from the "Bibliotheque de magie" and paused at the middle of the Place de Nostradamus. There, surrounded by a crowd of tourists, street vendors and beggars, shimmered the most famous sight of wizarding France, the Fontaine de vivre. Nostradamus himself had planned, erected and enchanted it and it had been here long before the square and all the houses had been built. She tore herself away from the vista and watched her parents for a moment. Miriam and Charles shared the same look of deep wonderment and their eyes roamed around in awe, just as her own had done. She cleared her throat to get their attention, and their heads swiveled back in her direction. . "It's a beautiful place, isn't it?" she asked softly and her mom and dad nodded mutely. "I've read a lot about it in the last weeks, and I think we should start with the most interesting artifact you can find here."

Without further explanation, she swung her duffel from her back and took out her Hogwarts robes. "It wont do to look like a gawking country bumpkin." she thought. "I'm a student of the most reputable magical school in Europe and I'll be seen as such." She threw the piece of cloth over her attire and fiddled with it until her golden Gryffindor badge was sitting firmly in the right place on her chest. "Come on, next stop is the "Fontain de vivre!" she called to her parents and started to walk into the square. The magical people crossing her way wore a multitude of different fashions, from obsolete muggle suits of the 40s to obscure cloaks which would've impressed even Professor Dumbledore with their eccentricity. Heading for the middle of the Place, Hermione began to explain the "Fontain de vivre's" history and significance to her mom and dad. "Nostradamus constructed it in 1560 and it has functioned without pause or maintenance on the spellwork since then. It's widely considered to be his most ambitious and wonderful work."

Her dad whistled softly, but refrained from further comment. "There is an invisible circle around it with a diameter of about 150 feet. Every person who crosses this line will become a part of the Fontain forever." Charles looked rather alarmed by this news, but his daughter just laughed at his expression. "There's nothing to worry about dad, by "becoming a part of it" I just mean that your face will be immortalized on one of the countless crystals that circulate inside of Nostradamus greatest achievement . The last estimate, taken in 1990, postulated that there are about 3 million such likenesses of visitors filling the Fontain." Miriam gasped at that stupendous number and her voice was a bit raspy when she spoke up. "I didn't know that there were so many wizards, even if you consider the 400 odd years since it was build."

Hermione gave her mom an understanding smile. "Remember, this is one of the most well-known sights in magical Europe. If there was a list like the "Seven wonders of the world" for the global wizarding community, this monument would unquestionably be included." She saw that she had impressed even her rather cosmopolitan parents and suppressed a chuckle. "You haven' t heard halve of it! The most stunning -and some say worrying- attribute of the "Fontain de vivre" is its ability to project prophetic visions into the minds of everyone in its vicinity. No one knows..."

She was interrupted by her father grasping her shoulder rather roughly and pulling her back to him. "Now listen, young Lady!" he uttered agitatedly. "I know this is all great fun for you, but I wont have some dead wizards mysterious gadget playing around in my head!" Forcing herself to stay calm, Hermione gathered her wits, looked him straight in the eyes and replied in her most logical and persuasive tone. "There is nothing harmful about the Fontaine, and the chances of anyone here today receiving a vision are miniscule. Only 76 people in all of history reported that they were granted one, and at least half of those claims are in doubt. In addition -sorry to be blunt dad- you aren't even a wizard."

Reluctantly, Charles Granger let go of his daughter and looked around, as if to make sure that no one had seen him act like a frightened schoolboy. "Sorry darling." he muttered. "It's just that... I'm not so comfortable with all this magical stuff to just trust..." he hesitated for a second "someone with the rather doubtful reputation of Nostradamus, of all people, with my own sanity." Suppressing her impulse to huff at him, Hermione nodded her understanding and began walking again, taking up her explanation where she had been interrupted. "As I was saying, no one knows how Nostradamus enabled his work to give prophecies, but most experts support the suggestion that he somehow "transferred" his own gift of divination into it.

"In all the years since its creation, the inner workings of the Fontaine remained unexplained. Many brilliant and powerful wizards tried to understand it, the last one was Gellert Grindelwald in 1943. He must've failed in his attempts to harness its prophetic power though, because he lost the war he had started and his freedom only two years later." Interrupting her flow of words, Hermione took a look around. They were approaching the center of the square now, and she wasn't sure if they had crossed the border of the Fontains hidden field of effect. In front of them, the magical artifact was glowing in all its glory, innumerable glittering crystals forming a shining geyser rising 30 feet into the air.

Pressing through the throng of people around the monument, Hermione reached the edge of the basin from which the jet of tiny, crystallized faces emerged. Three quarters of it were filled with a swirling mass, myriads of specs reflecting the brilliant morning sunlight. Every second, tens of thousands of the miniatures were swarming up the Fontaine itself. They were much too small and circulated too rapidly to recognize any individual features. The walls of the basin were made of seamless red marble, and animated scenes from Nostradamus long, productive life played over them as if the surface of the stone was one gigantic magical painting.

"This dwarves even the charmed ceiling of Hogwarts great hall into insignificance." Hermione thought in awe. She couldn't begin to imagine the skill necessary to build something like this, the hundreds of charms and spells that must be at work here, combined to form a single, functioning whole worthy of a genius. Sensing her parents stepping up behind her, she heard their whispers of appreciation, but she wasn't able to turn away from the wonder she was beholding. "This is what magic is capable of if it's used by the greatest mind of an age." she realized, feeling more than a bit humbled.

Letting her gaze wander freely over the geyser of crystals, Hermione became aware of a rippling distortion at its base. While she observed in fascination, uncounted crystals began to move in a repeating pattern that was shaped like a rough circle. Their speed increased from second to second and she was reminded of the whirlpools that formed regularly in dangerous river rapids. The chapter that covered the Fontaine in "Magical travel: Discovering wizarding France" hadn't mentioned any phenomenon like this. She looked around to see if others had noticed, but the people left and right seemed oblivious. "They must be blind not to see this!" Hermione thought, moving her gaze back and forth between the strange occurrence and the wizards and witches surrounding her.

As the diameter of the distortion grew and the crowds didn't react at all, she became worried. Something was wrong with the monument, and she had the sinking feeling that she herself was involved. The circle of crystals was rotating ever faster, and Hermione discovered with a start that she had lost the ability to look away. Round and round it went, and she felt captivated, like she was rooted to the spot, helplessly staring at the wildly spinning crystals. "Oh Merlin, what's happening to me?" With rising panic, she registered that her field of vision was shrinking, while the light that was reaching her eyes dimmed and her arms and legs went numb. Her awareness of the outer world dwindled from a constant stream to a trickle, then to nothingness, and finally she was plunged into oblivion.

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She came to with a start, involuntarily jerking like a marionette that was suddenly pulled up by its strings. Her body felt odd, like she was covered with heavy wet wool from head to toes. Opening her eyes in fearful anticipation of the unknown, Hermione found that suffocating blackness surrounded her. No sound reached her ears and the absolute silence was extremely eerie after the cacophony of the crowds. Even her nose told her nothing, there was no smell at all, not the faintest hint of the odors of the Parisian summer air she had grown accustomed to. "Whatever is going on must be connected to the strange behavior of Nostradamus Fontaine." the still working and logical part of her concluded. It was a fastly shrinking element of her mind though, because the stifling sensory depravation, combined with her anxiousness over her general situation as plaything of unknown powers were destroying her self-control rapidly.

Just when the ordeal became too much to bear another second, when the last vestiges of sanity started to give way to hysteria, the cloak of darkness around her was ripped apart with an agonizingly loud sound that rang like an explosion. The sudden return of her senses threatened to overwhelm her, but she battled the resulting nausea with all her might, clinging to the hope that she would find herself back with her parents. Success came to her eventually and Hermione began to take in what her newly cleared vision showed her- and nearly lost it again when she found herself standing on a rocky mountaintop, the sheer cliff just a few feet away from her falling off for thousands of feet. She could see other snow covered mountains in the distance, stabbing up into the blue sky like the fangs of a giant dragon.

"This isn't real, it can't be!" she chanted to herself. "I'm just dreaming, or maybe this is a vision, but I can't really be here!" Icy cold wind was blowing in her face and produced a frightening howl when it pressed along the rock faces and sharp ledges beneath her.

She nearly jumped off the cliff when a deafening thunderclap tore through the chill air behind her. The shock gave her a much needed surge of adrenalin, tearing her out of the paralyzed inaction. Hermione turned around slowly while her right hand began to frantically search for her wand, but her grasping fingers found only empty pockets. Dread filled her heart and she had to force herself to finish her slow motioned pirouette. A tall, broad- shouldered figure had appeared just ten feet away from her, clad in a simple black cape that hung around his form undisturbed by the raging gusts. A strange symbol was stitched on the cloth above his heart, a triangle filled by a circle and divided by a straight line from top to bottom. The hood of the garments disguised the strangers face in shadows and she wondered if it hid the features of Nostradamus, whose likeness she would recognize from the pictures she had seen of him.

The apparition remained motionless while Hermione stared at him in anticipation and fear. "If this is actually a vision created by the"Fontaine de vivre", this is the moment when everything will be explained." she thought, quivering in fear and expectation. But the strange figure just kept his place like a salt statue, and while she observed him rigidly in turn, the young Hogwarts student noticed that some kind of aura was starting to emanate from him, a dim green shimmer surrounding his form. She didn't know how she knew it, had never heard of a magical sense that enabled you to actually feel someone else's personality or intentions, but nevertheless, it was there.

And it wasn't pleasant or generous or even neutral, like she would've expected of a honored and wise wizard like Nostradamus. No, the emotions filtering to her through the chilly air were dark, it was as if a silent threat hung between them, a menacing presence devoid of goodwill or compassion. When she tried to clearly understand her fleeting impressions later on, she would always reach the conclusion that the unknown man was not only someone with great power, but one with enough ruthlessness to use it against everyone who stood in his way without mercy. Before she could gather the courage to brake their stalement by addressing him, the man raised his hands as if in prayer and began to speak in a deep, ringing voice that made her shiver and let goose bumps spring up all over her skin.

"Darkness and light are entwined in battle, they don't see twilight approaching, hidden in the wake of the destruction they wrought." He paused for a second and Hermione tried to decipher some meaning from his veiled words, but suddenly a searing pain in her forehead brushed all thoughts away. A branding iron pressed to her skin couldn't have caused such an agony, it felt more like a red hot nail was hammered into her skull.

To her great relief, the agony retreated as fast as it had come over her and she found herself facing the black clad enigma again. As if nothing had happened, he continued, his tone cold and mysterious. "The claw of retribution will find prey among both sides until the last hour and her final vengeance will shatter the world ." The last syllable petered out, and the ominous words echoed through Hermione's mind, heavy with a significance she couldn't fathom. "This is a prophecy?" she wondered, flabbergasted and not a little put out. "If that's all, it's no big surprise that divination is treated like a hunch-backed stepchild in most of my books." Hermione wanted to ask the man -probably Nostradamus, regardless of the strange aura- if he actually knew more than he'd said, but even as she opened her mouth, the forbidding stranger clapped his hands together with a resounding crack- and vanished.

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Without warning, Hermione's mind was thrown back into her body, and she stumbled a few feet back, gasping for air and shocked by the experience of the last few minutes. Strong hands grasped her from behind and steadied her shaking form. "Are you alright darling?" her Mom asked anxiously from beside her. After taking deep breaths for a minute, Hermione's frantically pumping heart slowed down and the whirlwind of confusion that had resulted from the vision ebbed away. She could feel her arms and legs again, could hear the crowd around her and see the monument. There it was, Nostradamus "Fontaine de vivre", gleaming innocently. Hermione stared at the font in a mixture of revulsion and curiosity until she remembered her moms question.

"I'll live, just a bout of dizziness I guess." she excused her strange behavior. "Maybe we could leave the press of all these people, and I'm sure I'll be good as new in a few minutes." Without further questions, her parents took her in their midst and led her out of the masses, directing her steps gently back to their starting point. Hermione didn't care where they took her, her mind was too busy working out what had actually happened to her and the ramifications of it.

"If this was a prophecy connected to myself it sounds rather bad. "Dark" and "Light" powers fighting, a "claw of retribution", "shattering the world"... Whatever could be meant by it?" They reached a small outdoors cafe and her parents sat her down at one of the tables, exchanging perturbed looks unnoticed by their daughter. "Maybe the "Dark" and "Light" are actually metaphors for Voldemort and those opposing him? But if that's so, I would be on the side of Harry and therefore the "light". The part about "twilight" and the "claw" doesn't make any sense!" She stopped her fevered thinking in frustration. "Perhaps it's just too recent and overpowering at the moment and I'll see clearer when I have more distance."

Hermione directed her attention to her parents and was surprised by the strain that showed on their faces. "Oh no, they must think I've gone mental by now." She pulled up a fake smile and sat up straighter in her chair. "I'm much better already, sorry if I worried you. It must be all the excitement combined with the dense crowd around the Fontaine." she explained with as much calm as she could muster. After she gave them a few more platitudes of a similar kind, her mom and dad relaxed visibly. When a waiter arrived, the Grangers ordered three cafe au laits and a helping of crepes for everyone. While they consumed the early lunch in silence, Hermione decided to postpone all analysis of the earlier incident until she was alone in her hotel room. It wouldn't do to let her parents notice that something was still amiss.

When they were ready to leave, Hermione had achieved superficial calmness again. "Let's have a walk along the shopping arcades." she proposed much more cheerfully than she felt. "Only if you're sure you feel up to it." her father admonished halfheartedly. "It's alright dad, really!" she assured him and produced a false grin before she sprang out of her chair. Soon the small family was on the way, traveling northwards along the lengthy chain of boutiques, emporiums and workshops. They halted here and there, marveling about the abundance of different products and services on offer. There were dresses with illusion charms to hide your surplus bodyweight, tool sets spelled for automated use, Hippogryph hypnotists for save air travel, towels with a sense of smell, odd artifacts without obvious use and countless other fascinating things.

Hermione felt her lost enthusiasm return in face of all those wonders. "I read they have a huge bazaar with flying carpets on this side of the Place. Can you imagine?" Charles and Miriam just smiled and nodded. "Wouldn't it be neat to have one of those? Much saver and more convenient than brooms, but they've been declared illegal at home in the early 80's, most probably due to lobbying from a broom-maker cartel..."

Hermione prattled on with her monolog while they walked, not noticing the amused but tolerant glances she got from other pedestrians. The bazaar was as impressive as described in her traveling guide, hundreds of magical carpets in all styles and sizes filled the shelves, from gigantic Persians to short and simple afghans. The proprietor was a very small and round wizard from Arabia, who stayed patient and cordial while she questioned him about Djins and the validity of One Thousand and One Nights for nearly fifteen minutes. Before they left, he presented her with a small package of honeyed dates, for which she thanked him profusely.

They had nearly reached the north- eastern corner of the square, when Hermione's gaze fell on a box of old books that was all but hidden behind a hall stand filled with second hand clothes. Stand and carton belonged to a rather dingy looking shop with a dusty showcase, but Hermione couldn't have cared less. Something about those books draw her to them like iron chippings attracted by a magnet. There was a certainty deep inside her that she was standing right in front of something important, maybe even live changing. She hurried forward, kneeled down and started to rummage through the crate, all the while ignoring the slight ache in her forehead that had begun the moment she had taken a look at the yellowed tomes.


	4. Justly deserved holidays Chapter 4

Author's note: This is the second installation of the former third chapter, giving you a roundup of the "Place de Nostradamus" situation and a surprise meeting with a certain pretty witch. It's also the last part of the story I had more or less pre- written on my drive, meaning that you should expect the first chapter of the second part ("Holidays from justice") in about two weeks. Btw. - The plot is pre-planned to the end. Enjoy this chapter and if you like it, please give me a review. I don't moderate there, so you can comment anonymously and even flame away if you want to. I would prefer to get constructive criticism though.

Part 1

Justly deserved holidays

Chapter 4

All the books in front of her were written in French and most of them looked like they were very old. Using the power of her "Amulettes de Babylon" she deciphered strange titles like "666 ways to use frogs" and "Divination with stuffed goose".

Five minutes elapsed and she was on the brink of giving up and writing off her funny feeling to frazzled nerves, when she hit gold. "Magical auto-défense pour jeunes sorcières" or "Magical self-defense for young witches" was a thin, rather tattered booklet published in 1943. The cover picture showed a beautiful young women firing a glowing red curse in the direction of a shadowy figure threatening her with a knife. "A practical defense book! I would've loved to have this in the last two years." she thought exaltedly. Hermione began to leaf through the book, stopping here and there to admire the magically animated drawings, which showed battle stances and wand movements in detail. Neither her first year textbook "The dark forces: A guide to self protection" nor any of Professor Lockhart's self-aggrandizing fiction had entailed such wonderful descriptions. Considering the rather disastrous Defense against the dark arts teachers of her first two years, it would be wise to be prepared for another one of their "quality". She needed this book!

Straightening up, Hermione turned to her parents and produced her best version of puppy dog eyes. "Look what I found- a very promising defense book." she enthused. Her dad took it from her hands and gave it a rather disgusted once over. "Considering it's probably older than me and second hand it should be cheap." he judged finally. Charles pulled two galleons out and handed them over to his daughter. "Ask the owner of the shop how much he wants for it, but don't pay more than this. We'll wait outside." She gave him a short hug, whispered "Thanks dad!" and darted away to secure her haul.

The door bell rang when Hermione entered the badly illuminated shop and she stopped right behind the threshold to orient herself. When her eyes had finally adjusted to the gloomy interior, she made her way over to the cash desk, navigating carefully through a labyrinth of mostly unidentifiable odds and ends. "I wonder if the owner of this shop ever heard of "the consumer is king?" she thought with irritation. When she reached the cash register, she looked around, searching for the proprietor. Finding no one, she cleared her throat loudly to announce herself. After a minute or more, the slight whispering of cloth marked the arrival of a shadowy figure behind the counter. "Bonjour ma pettite belle" a raspy feminine voice greeted her. Hermione took a step closer to get a clear look at the shop owner. "She must be at least as old as headmaster Dumbledore" she realized. "And frankly, he looks much healthier than this crone." Very long and thin gray hair fell to the women's scrawny shoulders, and her toothless mouth smiled in a rather unaesthetic way.

"What can I do for you, little miss?" the beldam asked wheezingly, while she leaned over the counter and granted Hermione with a whiff of her garlic breath. The young witch fought not to grimace at the smell, and presented the self- defense text rather hastily. "I would like to buy this book." she explained. The proprietor squinted at the title, then took the booklet into the gnarled

fingers of her right hand and held it directly in front of her eyes. "Her sight must be really bad after she worked who knows how long in this rat- shop." Hermione mused, while the old women stood still like a statue, mustering the textbook. Just when she began to wonder if she should interrupt the strange shrews staring with a reminder of her continued presence, the owner began to mutter to herself in a hushed tone. "Yes, yes, I remember this one well, caused a good ruckus in its day, oh yes it did."

Hermione felt a sudden peak of bibliophile curiosity." Did you say there was a controversy about this specific book Madame?" she inquired politely. The old women twitched at the sound of her voice and looked around as if she was woken from a rather confusing dream, but then her face cleared and her eyes focused on Hermione. "Indeed, little one." she whispered hoarsely. "The public anger about this pamphlet was broad enough to make it into the headlines of "Le Voyant". Many good people were furious that the ministry would dare to impinge on their traditional rights like this."

The vendor paused to take a deep and rattling breath, while the vagueness of her words worked like a dose of gasoline on the fire of Hermione's inquisitiveness. "And it was rather shocking, I tell you." the woman continued in her shaky voice. "It wasn't enough to take the fathers right to decide what their virginal daughters were allowed to learn..." She made a face as if the monstrosity of it all shocked her to this day. "... they went so far to put a ward on the book so that mutinous little girls could hide it from their sires in their own homes!"

The last words were spoken in such an indignant tone that Hermione could only deduce that the crone in front of her had never been a suffragette, even in her younger years. But much more interesting than the old hags reactionary stance on gender equality was the fact that some kind of powerful spell had been worked on the frail little shell of "Magical auto-défense pour jeunes sorcières". If she was lucky, some traces of the old magic remained and she could try to detect them when she was back at Hogwarts! A historic magical puzzle hidden in such an unassuming booklet- the magical world never stopped to amaze her. Hermione was so immersed in her own musings that she nearly missed the shopkeepers next words.

"Maybe the scandal would have blown over eventually -it was a time of war after all- but then someone in the ministries educational bureau leaked the identity of the authoress." The proprietor shook her head in obviously fond reminiscence. "Even the rumors about the torture cellars of Nurmengard failed to swell the ranks of the Resistance like that crumb of news." The skin on Hermione's brow curled in bewilderment. Was her "Amulettes de Babylon" malfunctioning, or had she actually missed some important point in the old woman's narrative? Why would the name of an obscure female author become a political rallying point? Before she could convey her confusion, the shop owner continued, a grimace of intense distaste on her haggard features. "After all, who in his right mind would want their daughter to learn magic from a source as tainted and evil as the modern Lilith, the vile and accursed concubine of the beast, someone so perverted as to be the lover of Gellert Grindelwald?"

/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/

Who would have guessed that a mattress you had thought of as heavenly soft just yesterday could feel as uncomfortable as a Fakirs board only 24 hours later? Or maybe it was the guilty conscience that kept Hermione Granger awake deep into the night, throwing herself around under her bedspread and being very ill at ease with herself. "Actually buying that book after what I learned about it was one of the most stupid things I ever did!" she kept berating herself. "What if some of the spells in there are dark magic and I start learning them without even knowing?" Despite those intense worries, a tiny part in the backside of her head kept insisting that she had made the right choice.

After all, something indefinable had pulled her to the small booklet like a moth to fire, surely there was a reason for that? A secret to find out? And even if Grindelwald's mistress had written the contents- did that mean that everything inside its pages, including the wonderful animated spell diagrams and the fighting techniques adapted for girls and women, were forbidden knowledge? She remembered with a shame induced twist in her tummy how she had pocketed her newest possession even before she left the shop, afraid that some random passer by would recognize it and take her to task in front of her parents. Even Harry and Ron, rule breakers extraordinaire would be shocked if they should ever come to know that their uptight female friend had just bought a book that would be considered a lesser dark artifact in Britain.

Even worse than the issue of the book was the Fontaine induced "vision" she had suffered through this morning. When she was confronted with her worried parents after the overwhelming experience, Hermione had procrastinated any further reflection on the events significance with the seemingly rational reasoning that it would be bad to disturb Charles and Miriam's piece of mind any more than necessary. Being unusually absent-minded while they visited the one place she had gone on about for the last weeks would've been rather counterproductive in that regard.

But when they had finally left the Place de Nostradamus in the early hours of the evening, after circling its whole circumference, she had found that she wasn't at all eager to remember what happened and to speculate about its meaning. From that point on she mostly tried not to think too much about the whole thing. Quite contrary, she felt as if she would surely go mad before long if she let her mind try to dissect what happened. "Light" and "Darkness" fighting, a "claw of retribution", "shattering the world"... these unspecific words went way over her head and frightened her much more than any tangible threat ever could . It all didn't bear thinking about, at least while she was here in France, separated from the Hogwarts library and it's doubtlessly huge pool of books concerning the interpretation of prophecies.

It would've been nice to escape her problems into sleep and she tried to count sheep for a while, but it didn't help the least to distract her from her internal struggle. She finally decided to take a short trip to the top of the hotel building, where a sun terrace with canvas chairs was open to guests at all times, giving them access to fresh air. She threw over a bathrobe and left her bedroom, taking up the lounge key from the living room table and tiptoeing to the main door, keeping very quite so she wouldn't wake her parents. The corridors of the Ritz were deserted at this late hour, but that was just as well- any so called "responsible adult" would send her back to bed with some choice words. She reached the lift, called the cabin up to her and waited impatiently until a soft "ding" announced its quickly she pushed the uppermost button and leaned back against the cars walls. She closed her eyes wearily and waited for the chime that would sound when the doors opened again.

It finally came and she was pleasantly surprised by how refreshing the air felt that reached her before she even left the cabin. She walked over to the terrace and sat down on one of the sunloungers with the intention to rest for a moment, but she hadn't even gotten her legs up when she heard the sound of footsteps coming from behind the lift housing. Instinctively she tried to grab for her wand, but couldn't find it in her bathrobe sleeve.

With a rush of adrenaline that felt like a bucket of ice water had been spilled over her head she realized that she had left it in her bedroom, not thinking that anything in this high security luxury hotel could pose a danger to her. But who could be up here at this hour of the night? Some wired out cocaine user or pot smoker? A pair of illicit lovers? She couldn't be sure, so she acted according to the time honored "better save than sorry" principle and got back up to her feet, warily observing the area where the intruder could show up any moment.

The steps became louder and seconds later someone totally unexpected walked into the area lit up by the internal lighting of the lift- Hermione swallowed convulsively when she recognized Fleur Delacour, the lovely French girl who had never been far from her thoughts since she had first seen her on the day of their arrival. Like on that evening in the hotel lobby, Fleur was surrounded by an aura of unearthly beauty, causing Hermione to feel butterflies begin to swarm in her stomach. The fetching blonde witch did a double take as she spotted Hermione and her smooth brow furrowed in deep puzzlement. They stared at each other, neither sure how to react to this strange encounter in the wee hours of the night.

When nearly a minute had passed, with both young witches examining each other without saying a word, Hermione felt she had to break the awkward silence. Here was the gorgeous person she had dreamed about at least two times, a girl so attractive that just meeting her had caused a radical change in her own self image- she would never forgive herself if she didn't grasp this opportunity with both hands! Gathering her Gryffindor courage, Hermione touched the Amulettes de Babylon hanging around her neck for reassurance, remembering just in time that there was no need to stammer out whatever she was going to say in her rudimentary French.

"Good evening -or should I say morning- Miss Delacour." Hermione opened the conversation with a friendly note. "It's nice to meet you again, hopefully under better circumstances than last time." She paused for a short moment and tilted her head slightly as if she was trying to remember something. "I may be mistaken, but I think I was never properly introduced to you." She bowed slightly, causing some strands of her bushy hair to fall in front of her eyes. When she straightened up again, she brushed them away with a practiced swipe. "Hermione Granger, at your service."

/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/

Fleur was surprised when the British girl opened her mouth and greeted her in perfect French, as if she had never committed the social faux pas of asking the very conservative and proud Madame Delacour if she could speak with her in a foreign language while they were in the heart of Paris, the center of French culture. "It seems as if she has found out about the family of linguistic charms then." Beauxbattons' top student mused. But regardless of her mothers ridiculous notions about antique protocol, she still wasn't sure if she wanted to talk to the younger girl at all. She'd come up here to the terrace every morning since their arrival to get a few minutes of alone time, a precious reprieve from the stifling atmosphere that surrounded her parents most of the time. She didn't appreciate Granger disturbing her rare moment of tranquility, but ultimately accepted that it couldn't be helped now.

"It won't kill me to be at least civil with her, after all she is a guest of my country- and I can show her that not all members of the French magical community are stuck up reactionaries." She fought with her weaker self for a moment, then she produced a rather insincere smile. "I hope it will be a good morning, Miss Granger, according to my astronomy teacher the first signs of dawn should be observable in less than 40 minutes." Her secret hopes that a reference to the topic of astronomy -generally seen as one of the most boring magical subjects at her school- would disincline the younger witch from further chit-chat were demolished quickly when the other girls face lit up as if Christmas and Easter had fallen on one day.

"Oh, astronomy is fantastic!" she gushed happily. "I have a solar calendar at home to keep track of the subtle change in properties that varying day and night lengths produce in magical plants. It's fascinating how just one hour of sunlight more or less can make or break the potency of some potions or influence how long a transfigured flower can persist before it reverses into its initial inanimate shape again." She started to pace in front of Fleur, gesticulating vivaciously and seemingly forgetting where she was at the moment."And this next school year I'll start with divination, another field of magic where astronomical knowledge is crucially important." While the Granger girl talked on and on about the usefulness of star gazing Fleur felt something steer inside her. Sure, astronomy was a topic as dry as dust and could bore you to tears, but the enthusiasm Hermione emanated was so heartfelt and contagious that she could feel her own spirits rise in reaction.

A spontaneous grin formed on her lips and she held up a hand to stop the other girl in her rant, which had by now reached speculations about the juncture between astronomy and obscure druidic rituals. "Hold on there Hermione, my note taking isn't up to your lecturing speed." she said teasingly. The British student gave her a startled look that changed quickly to one of alarming self loathing. "Hey, there is no reason to beat yourself up just because you are passionate about something." Fleur tried to soothe her in a soft tone. "I would like to discuss the ideas you just mentioned sometime, but don't you think it would be sensible if we got to know each other better before we dive into such subjects?"

She went over to the bushy haired girl and laid a supportive hand on her shoulder while she locked her blue eyes with Hermione's brown ones, trying to convey the message that she wasn't going to hold the girls obvious bookishness against her. She nodded towards the sunloungers a few feet away. "Why don't we sit down for a moment and you can tell me about yourself and your school?" She began to move to the canvas chairs, pulling a halting Hermione with her. "I've been to London several times, but was never allowed to visit Hogwarts, so I'm quite curious about the way a great warlock like Albus Dumbledore, renowned vanquisher of Grindelwald, runs a school full of children."

They had reached the deck chairs and she directed Hermione to sit down on one, taking the next in the row for herself. Observing her quietly for a moment, Fleur saw a heavily wrinkled forehead and downcast eyes. Obviously the other youth was still berating herself for what she perceived as her lack of peoples skills. That wouldn't do- Fleur decided that Hermione could use a boost for her self confidence. "Hermione..." she aspirated the name and let it roll from her tongue melodiously. When the British student looked up at her with large eyes and rising eyebrows, she gave her a wide and honest grin. "That's a very nice name, and rather unusual even in wizarding circles. Am I correct that it is derived from the Greek god Hermes?"

Hermione nodded and smiled tentatively, proofing to Fleur that the ice between them had finally been broken."My parents thought they were very clever when they choose that name and I like it myself." the British witch explained. "But primary school taught me quickly that to stand out of the masses of Mary-Janes and Elizabeths wasn't that great- being special makes you a target." Fleur nodded understandingly. "I've had the same experience, believe me when I tell you that having Veela blood in my veins is an encumbrance most of the time." When she saw the other girl frown in incomprehension, Fleur remembered the way her mother had taunted Hermione about her ignorance concerning Veelas. She wasn't keen to give an explanation, but after her off hand remark about her heritage it seemed to be unavoidable.

"Ah well, I don't want to go into the details right now, but the short version is that my grandmother was a Veela, a member of a magical race which has the gift to entrance men with their beauty until they can't do much more than pant and slobber. The whole thing is disgusting if you ask me, but I've inherited it and I haven't the same control over it a full Veela has. It's a rare occasion that I can talk with a man or boy without him making advances." Fleur stared into the distance and waited for Hermione to display some sign of the jealously she had come to anticipate after years of suffering through green-eyed hissy fits in Beauxbattons. But a moment later she learned that her past experiences had led her to misjudge the British girl rather badly.

"That's awful!" Hermione exclaimed, true compassion shining in her eyes. "My two best friends are boys, it would destroy our friendship in no time if one of my ancestors had left me with such an "ability". I'd think of it as a curse rather than a gift." She paused and looked at Fleur, apparently unsure if her last comment had crossed some line, but the French girl just nodded silently. "I thought your impact on all those hapless muggles was caused by some charm you used deliberately to bait them. I'm really sorry that I made such a nasty assumption about you." Hermione apologized, conferring her sincerity through her solemn mien and tone.

To say that Fleur was amazed by Hermione's reaction would have been an understatement, because the few friends she had in school had taken much longer than this young girl to come to terms with her nature as part-Veela. "You didn't know, so there is no reason to get agitated on my behalf. To tell the truth, I was rather impressed by your attempt to remind my mother of the Statute of Secrecy." Hermione smiled ruefully when she was reminded of the scene she made, but soon an inquisitive expression replaced the remorse. "So, why did you come to the Ritz if you knew what would happen to the muggles?"

Fleur sighed loudly and threw her arms in the air in a show of frustration. "You have seen my mother, she is very conservative and conscious of her status as a member of the glorious and mighty Delacoure line." She chuckled and shook her head self-deprecatingly. "When we arrived at the Place de Nostradamus and found that the royal suite in the Tour de l'Or -the best wizarding hotel in France- was taken by the Malfoys, of all people, my mother insisted on finding another location befitting the Delacours. Of course nothing else was good enough. That's why she talked my father into obtaining a special permit for our residence here in the Ritz, despite our Veela nature. I'm sure the obliviation office isn't very pleased with my dad just now."

Hermione had jerked her head up when Fleur mentioned the Malfoys, and sure enough, her next question confirmed her interest in them. "Did you say the Malfoys, as in Lucius, Draco and Narcissa Malfoy?" Fleur nodded in confirmation. "I don't know how much you have heard about their family history, but there is a longstanding feud between our lines, going back to the days before the Revolution."

She paused, unsure how much of the whole bloody mess would interest the other girl, but Hermione looked eager, as if her thirst for new knowledge was unquenchable. "The Malfoy line always supported the royal House of Bourbon, even after the Statutes were implemented in 1692, but the Delacours withdrew their endorsement in the reign of Lois XIV. They understood that absolute rule by one corrupt man would destroy the nation sooner or later."

"Since then, both families have feuded with each other and it all culminated in the revolution. The Malfoys fled the country for England when Lois the XVI was overthrown and they have never forgiven the Delacours for what they perceive as my families leading role in exiling them. That's why we couldn't possibly reside in a lesser suite than they in the same hotel, it would be a dreadful loss of face in my parents eyes." Hermione had listened attentively, but now she held up her hand to stop Fleur's flow of words. "What I don't understand is why your family would want a hotel suite at all- I assume you live somewhere in France, so why not just floo or portkey home?"

Chuckling, Fleur shook her head once again, this time in sardonic amusement, making the golden stresses of her hair fly through the air. "Such a question shows that you are a muggleborn- you think about this whole problem in practical terms of travel times and convenience, but for the old families, it's all about representing their own wealth and power." She smiled at the confusion showing on Hermione's features and tried to explain. "If you can't afford to stay in the Tour de l'Or for a week you don't amount to much in the eyes of high society.

And this time of the year, shortly before the Beauxbattons term starts again, is traditionally reserved for parading your wealth and your soon to be marriageable children around for everyone to see. Maybe you'll want to ask me now how residing in the muggle "Ritz" could achieve that- the answer is that no one outside some muggleborn like you has ever heard about it, but that doesn't count with my mother. Tradition is a value in and of itself is one of her most cherished mottoes."

Fleur fell silent and a comfortable calm stretched between them, each girl following her own thoughts about what had transpired in their conversation. The French witch was eventually distracted from her less than charitable musing about her mothers expensive and pointless eccentricities when Hermione made a small sound of surprised delight. "Look, your teacher was right, here comes the sun." the British girl whispered intensely and pointed to the eastern sky, where small smudges of crimson light became visible at the edge of the horizon. It was a mesmerizing sight, beautiful and mysterious in its promise of a new day, but it reminded Fleur that her time was limited. After taking a look at the heavy golden pocket watch she carried in remembrance of her granny, Fleur knew she should head back to her families suite very soon if she wanted her little elopement to stay unnoticed.

She sighed in displeasure, attracting Hermione's attention away from the natural spectacle playing itself out in front of their eyes. "What's the matter Miss Delacour..." she paused for a second, an embarrassed expression flitting about her features "– or may I call you Fleur?" The young women gave her a reassuring nod. "After burdening you with all my familial and personal problems I would expect you to use my given name, Hermione." she said gently. "But talking of said problems, I fear I have to leave now before my notoriously early rising mother discovers me gone and calls the auror division with a hysteric report of my kidnapping." She stood up from the canvas chair and stretched her lithe body without noticing the sudden rush of red on Hermione's cheeks. She turned around and let her eyes settle on her chance acquaintance. "I'm rather disappointed that we didn't have time for some stories about Dumbledore and Hogwarts, but if you are agreeable, we could write each other when the school year commences."

Hermione beamed up at her as if she had just won the lottery. "Of course Fleur, that would be so great!" she enthused happily. "I always wished I had a pen pall, this will be so much fun!" Fleur took another nervous look at her watch. "I really have to go now, just send an owl to "Miss Fleur Delacour, Beauxbatons Academy of Magic" and I'll receive it." She walked over to Hermione, who had stood up from her chair by now, and surprised herself when she gave the shorter girl a quick hug. "Stay save and have a good time here in Paris!" she whispered fiercely, than she turned around and hurried to the lift, where she found that the cabin had stayed up and was waiting for her. She pushed the right button and took a last look outside, waving goodbye to Hermione, then the heavy doors closed and cut of her view of the other girl.

Fleur couldn't have known it on this fateful summer morning, but the next time they met, the British witch would be an outlaw on the run.


	5. Holidays from justice Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't own "Harry Potter" and I don't intend to make any money with this fanfiction. 

Authors note: I'm very sorry for the extreme delay of this chapter. The reason is a combination of RL time restrains and writers block. I hope to write another chapter of the second part of this story before January is over, but there are no guarantees. Enjoy!

Edititorial note: After waking up this morning I reread what I had posted and some stupid mistakes jumped me in the face. I decided to go over the chapter again with a fine comb and do some content rearrangement too. I would like to thank my reviewer "piceaabies" for important advice regarding quotation marks.

Part 2  
>Holidays from Justice<br>Chapter 1

It was a warm and very busy summer evening in Diagon Alley, with throngs of wizards and witches hustling and bustling around the magical shopping district, most of them only interested in finishing their business before closing time. The more frequented stores, like "Flourish and Blotts" or "Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions" had waiting lines of annoyed customers in front of their doors. Some of the people were even trying to relieve their tensions through harsh words addressed to the people in front of them. In these rush hour conditions it was nearly impossible to keep track of any single person for more than a few seconds, making it the ideal time for pickpockets, crooked street vendors and everyone else who wanted to vanish in the crowds or keep themselves inconspicuous.

No one noticed the unaccompanied teenage girl who entered the Alley through the backyard of the "Leaky Cauldron" and joined the flow of people heading towards Gringotts. Her bushy brown hair was held back in a practical pony tail and she was attired in a very simple black robe without any flashy embroidery or ornamentation that could attract attention. She let herself be swept along with the crowd, kept the gaze of her brown eyes fixed to the ground and didn't even react when a very fat and red faced wizard stepped on the heal of her right shoe without apologizing.

When the mass of impatiently pushing people in front of her had nearly reached the shadowy street corner that was the entrance to Knockturn Alley, the youth began to work her way to the edge of the road, timing her efforts well enough to slip into the most disreputable location of wizarding Britain without any concerned busybody trying to stop her. Before walking any further, the girl took out her wand and held it in a ready position, than she forced her features to form a frightening scowl that didn't fit her face at all. She started to walk deeper into the infamous lane and let her eyes roam from left to right constantly, very aware of the dangers that could lurk in the twilight, especially for someone of her age and appearance.

Knockturn Alley seemed nearly deserted, but she could hear hissing whispers, harsh breathing and the occasional hacking cough coming from nooks and crannies in the walls of the houses. Many of the dubious shops that gave the small street its reputation as a place where you could buy absolutely everything -if you had hard coinage- seemed to be closed, but the girl didn't bother to check if this impression was true. She increased her pace but kept up her vigilance, very aware that she had been noticed, but determined to finish her business regardless. A few minutes of silent and tense walking went by until she arrived in front of a dirty little shop whose owner seemed to have decided that painting the display windows in a deep red color was the way to attract clients. The faded writing above the door announced the shops conspicuously innocent name -"Wizarding supplies"- to everyone who ventured close enough to decipher it in the Alley's gloom.

The girl took a few slow steps in direction of the shops front entrance, her body language signaling doubt and hesitance for the first time since she entered the Alley. After a few moments of seemingly painful indecision she gathered herself visibly and knocked at the old oaken door. Nothing happened for many seconds, and time seemed to stretch itself thin, but finally she detected faint murmured words from the other side and the entrance opened with a load and jarring creak. The teenager pushed it fully open and entered the store, trying to see through the gloom inside with a penetrating gaze. She closed the door without letting her guard down and mustered the heavily cluttered room before her intensely. Identifying any of the contents was nearly impossible in the poor light falling into the store through the painted windows. After about a minute had passed in tense silence her eyes had adjusted and she became aware of a very small person clothed in an ominous black cloak who was leaning against a heavily ornamented trunk in the middle of the chaotic display.

"Greetings, young witch!" the same voice she'd heard before welcomed her. It sounded raspy and rather odd, as if the proprietor had his mouth filled with a hand full of pebbles. "What can I do for you this fine afternoon?" Still hanging on to her wand she walked over to him, rounding some tables covered with strange objects of all forms and sizes. When she reached the owner of "Wizarding supplies" she towered over him and it was impossible to get a good look at his face because he hid it in the shadows of his hood. "I heard you are selling some... very special items, things that may be hard to obtain elsewhere." she began to explain her reason for being there in a hushed tone, but paused and looked around as if afraid someone could overhear them. "Don't worry my child, there are anti- spying wards surrounding my property, you can speak freely." the dealer told her reassuringly. "What is it you wish to acquire that has you in such needless worry about the security of my humble establishment?"

She fixed her gaze on the hood of the owner's cloak and her brown eyes seemed to change, from soft and bland to flinty and cold. "I need a book, I don't know the exact title or author, but I've read that it contains information that could allow *someone* to get rid of certain inconvenient security measures unjustly implemented by the Improper Use of Magic Office. Do you understand?" The dealer was silent for a moment, but then he moved his head in a nearly imperceptible nod. "You are the first one to ask for this in a very long time." he stated."I am not sure if there is a copy of that book still around somewhere, but we will find out." He hummed tunelessly, as if the prospect of searching for an old tome in the depths of the shop lifted his mood. "Come with me and I will check if I can be of service to you today."

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Stanley Grudegen was in the process of throwing his inconspicuous gray coat over his thin frame and already halfway to the door when the crystal that was installed at the ceiling of his office began to produce stroboscopic pulses of red light. He groaned silently -Miranda wouldn't be pleased if he had to clock overtime again- but he turned around dutifully nonetheless and made his way over to the old and worn out rack that covered the whole western wall of the room. It was filled with dozens of small mirrors in a variety of different shapes and forms, sorted from the top left to the bottom right of the frame in order of call frequency and general importance.

He let his eyes sweep over the shelves in a search pattern honed by long experience until they fell on the one mirror which surface had changed, not reflecting the rooms interior but showing something else altogether. He grabbed the magical communication device and held it in front of his face, frowning slightly to express his impatience. "Good evening Carrelus!" he greeted the informant, using a long established code name. "And to you, Keyholder. I see that you are in no mood for pleasantries, so I'll come to the point straight away- there was a young witch in this afternoon, maybe fourteen or fifteen years old. She bought my last issue of "Breaking the bonds"."

Silence stretched for a moment between the two, until Grudegen had processed his informants words. Then he walked over to his desk and rummaged around for an unused parchment roll and his quill. "Well, that's the first one in a long time who was stupid enough to come to you." he said flatly. He put the mirror down on his desk and began to scribble an initial report form. "Just send over your memory of that girl and we'll see if we have a file on her- maybe we can put a stop to this before she tries the ritual." The hooded man in the mirror nodded. "I've already owled it in the usual container, together with my full report. It should arrive in the ministries post office sometime tonight. If there's nothing else, I'm signing out." Grudgen nodded without looking up from his papers. "Thanks for the good work Carrelus, I hope we can use it to keep that imbecile child out of Azkaban."

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Harry Potter was happy. Really and truly happy. A state of mind very unusual for him in this time of the year. The reason for his brilliant mood was the fact that he hadn't weeded his aunts plants, cooked dinner for his obese cousin or even heard the rough voice of his uncle for the last few weeks. Instead, he was sitting in the warm afternoon sunshine, with a slowly melting plate of delicious spaghetti ice in front of him and hundreds of people nearby who wouldn't even dream of calling him a "freak". The other tables of Florean Fortescue's ice cafe were occupied by dozens of wizards and witches and the stream of pedestrians walking by on Diagon Alley never dwindled even for a minute.

He took another spoon full and moved it to his mouth while he let his eyes roam around lazily. But the fantastic mix of vanilla ice, frosted whipped cream and strawberry sauce never reached his eagerly waiting taste buds. The ladle froze in mid air when he suddenly spotted a very familiar face in the crowd, which he hadn't expected to see for at least a few more days. He jumped up, snatched a silver sickle from his pocket, threw it on the table and was off, all in one fluid motion that betrayed the experienced quidditch player in him.

Harry joined the ranks of shoppers and instantly started to use his diminutive built and high agility to circumvent slow moving witches and wizards. He pushed through small openings between people, excusing himself left and right while he tried to keep that bushy mop of hair he had seen seconds before in his view. But she was moving too fast and he feared to loose sight of her, which made him brake one of the rules he had developed in his last month of relative freedom- he drew attention to himself. "Hermione!" he shouted loudly, trying to reach her ears over the buzz of the surrounding crowd. "Hermione Granger!" She didn't react and Harry doubled his efforts to reach her, winding through the throng like a garden gnome in freshly loosened soil.

"Hey Hermione, over here!" he called again, even louder than before. He heard some of the folk he had passed mumble angrily, but didn't heed their admonishments to be more considerate of peoples personal space. Finally, his efforts bore fruit when his friend looked around with a severe frown on her brow and spotted him coming up behind her. She seemed to tense for a moment, but then a somewhat untypical smile -one could have called it crooked- hushed over her face and she raised her hand and gave him a wave.

Half a minute later he arrived at the spot in which she had waited for him, panting from the exertion of the chase. He braced himself for one of her fierce hugs, but she stayed where she was, with a rather lukewarm smile on her features. He couldn't decide if he was glad or disappointed that she refrained from her usual habit of granting him crushing embraces."Hello Harry, what a nice surprise!" she greeted him, but he got the impression she wasn't all that glad to see him. "I hope you had a good vacation." she continued without her usual warm and enthusiastic inflection. Faced with her indifferent tone Harry felt a small prick of insecurity and confusion- was something wrong between them? Was she angry with him for some unfathomable female reason?

"What are you doing here in Diagon Alley all alone? Where are your parents?" he asked, trying to get a normal conversation going with his friend. Instead of answering him, she looked around, as if to make sure no one was watching them. "Come with me!" she said shortly, grasped his right arm and pulled him along until they reached a wide free space in front of a shop selling used cauldrons. "I'm alone and my mom and dad don't know I'm here." Hermione explained once she had made sure that no one could listen to her words. "I don't have much time before they start to miss me, so we have to keep this brief."

Harrys discomposure was growing by leaps and bounds by now, his thoughts a swirling mass of confused speculation. "What's up with you, Hermione? Why would you run away and hide something from your mom and dad?" he asked. She sighed impatiently and looked at an intricate mechanical wristwatch he had never seen her wearing before. "Must be a new one, maybe she bought it in France." he thought inconsequentially, while he monitored her facial expression for some hint what was really going on. "Look Harry, things have changed since last year, all right!" she whispered vehemently. "Being petrified for months by a giant snake as a result of an evil intrigue to rid the school of muggleborns has shifted my perspective on things."

The baffled look he gave her seemed to provoke her temper, because her voice was filled with vitriol when she went on. "Not only must I lie to my parents face about what happened to me, but I'm in fact helpless to protect them and myself if some nasty schemer like Malfoy wants to hurt us." Harry held both his hands up to placate her, but she didn't stop for a moment, caught in one of her trademark rapid fire rants. "I can't even raise a simple apparation warning ward without the mindless ministry sending me a reprimand for breaking their discriminatory laws!" she fumed.

"And that-" Hermione paused and gave him a calculating look, as if she wondered how much she should tell him "-is the reason why I'm going to take matters into my own hands." Harry was perturbed by his friends words and he wanted desperately to say something calming, maybe even cast a charm to restore her to the sane and friendly girl he had bid farewell on platform 9 3/4 not so long ago, but she went on heedless of his wishes. "I did some research while I was in Paris and I found a text that referenced another book which holds the solution to my families security."

She patted the book bag slung over her shoulder and gave him a rather conspiratorial grin. "That book is what I just acquired and before I leave for Hogwarts I'll make sure that no wizard can come into my parents house without them being warned." She nodded eagerly, as if to strengthen her own resolve. "I'm going to do this, regardless what the damned Improper Use of Magic Office has to say. I will just cast off..." Hermiones words were abruptly halted by a muted ringing sound coming from her wrist. She looked at her clock and cursed. "Sorry Harry, I have to run now or mom and dad will find out that I left the theater early." She touched his shoulder, gave him a hasty smile and started to jog away. "See you on the express!" she called over her shoulder, than she vanished in the crowd. Harry stood where she left him, astonished and afraid of what would happen to Hermione if the obscure plan she had hinted at went wrong.

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Hermione woke up slowly, roused by a loud pounding sound which throbbed through her head, oddly in sync with the rhythmic waves of a nauseating headache. Slowly she became aware that something was very wrong, and soon she was filled with the same foreboding she had last felt when she discovered the nature of the monster hidden in the Chamber of Secrets. Her mind cleared with a snap when the hammering stopped as if cut off and was instantly replaced by angry voices shouting unintelligible words. She opened her eyes and found herself lying on the floor beside her bed, clad only in her thin white nightshirt and in the midst of a pentacle formed by burned down red candles.

"What is going on here?" was the first clear thought that shot through her consciousness like a searing bolt of lightning. She cast back her mind frantically, searching for an answer. The last thing she could remember was lying in her bed, reading the book her parents had presented her with for the long drive back to London -The Count of Monte Cristo- and wondering how Dantès would take his revenge on Villefort There was just a blank where the explanation for her current position should have been.

Rapid steps sounded from the stairs outside her door, blotting out the yelling voices and coming closer with every heartbeat. Intense fear made her breath hitch in her throat and adrenaline pump through her veins. She rose up unsteadily, propping herself up on her nightstand, her eyes focused on the door to her room. She stared at it like a rabbit confronted with a rattlesnake, frozen in momentary indecision. "Where is my wand? I need my wand!" she realized, but before she could wrench her gaze away, the door was pushed open with such force that it banged against the wall and pieces of finery and wall paper exploded into the room.

A tall figure in a billowing black cloak stood in the door frame. The man was holding a brightly glowing wand in his right hand and had a look of intense fury on his gaunt face. Hermione threw up her arms instinctively, to shield her eyes from the glare. She stumbled back against the bookcase beside her bed and nearly fell, catching herself just in time. She was scared out of her mind by all the incomprehensible things happening, but from deep within she mustered her Gryffindor courage to demand an explanation for the outrageous intrusion into her bedroom. All her courage was in vain though- before she could utter even one syllable the unknown man started to move his wand and cried a single word- "Stupefy!" The last thing she saw was a red flash, than the world went black for Hermione Jane Granger.

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When she awoke again, this time with an even more horrible headache, Hermione found herself sitting upright, bound to a metal chair in the midst of an otherwise naked room painted in a harsh white color. The confrontation with the unknown man came back to her in a flash and burning fear spread inside her. It started to circulate through her system like a poison, corroded her sanity and devastated all rational thought. For a seemingly endless period she fought an intense battle with her own raging emotions. A fit of heavy crying shook her whole body and the extreme anxiety started to decline only when she had exhausted her tear ducts. At long last she calmed down enough to take a better look at her situation.

Her body was shivering slightly and her skin was covered in goose bumps. "No wonder" a detached part of her inner voice commented "you are still wearing your nightie and it's no more than 16 degree Celsius in here". A heavy iron door was the only visible way out of the chamber, but for Hermione it could as well have been on the moon- someone had bound her ankles to the legs of the chair with thick bands of rope. Her wrists were yoked in heavy iron bracelets which were themselves welded to the chairs armrests. She couldn't move more than a few centimeters in any direction.

"Only a calm approach to this horrible situation can help me come out of it alive." she told herself and repeated the simple insight like a mantra, until at least some clarity of mind was restored. "Even though I'm unable to escape from here just now, I can at least try to analyse what happened." she decided. One thing seemed obvious- if the man who had attacked her in her own bedroom had wanted her dead, she wouldn't be here. Therefore, he or his backers had some form of interest in her survival, at least for now. Hermione had read enough mysteries to know the next question she had to ask- "Cui bono?".

But as hard as she pondered the problem, no clear suspect who would profit from what had happened to her presented itself. Surely, no wizard would want to kidnap her for her parents muggle money? That much seemed certain. And what advantages could some party exclusively involved in the wizarding world gain by abducting a muggleborn -soon to be third year- Hogwarts student? "It doesn't make any sense at all!" she thought despairingly. Sure, there were people who hated her and her friends -the Malfoys and other fanatical purebloods- but it seemed implausible that they would actually raid her home and take her from her parents. If that had been a realistic possibility, surely Professor Dumbledore would have warned her about it!

Her thoughts wandered to the fate of her mom and dad. She realized now that the sounds she'd heard before she was captured had been the result of the intruder knocking on the door in the middle of the night and Charles angry reaction to the disturbance. She could only hope that whoever was behind her kidnapping wasn't interested in her parents. The fact that her attacker had somehow bypassed her father was very worrying though. Hermione's thoughts went in circles around that particular predicament until an unexpected sound made her look up hastily.

The heavy iron door creaked unpleasantly as it was opened, than the same man who had snatched her away from her home entered the room. In contrast to their first encounter his face showed cold indifference as he approached her. He stopped about three feet in front of the chair. Hermione felt as if her innards had frozen and she didn't dare to move. The wizard leaned forward and inspected her bonds, than nodded to himself obviously satisfied with their condition. Why he thought there was the slightest chance of a 13 year old girl escaping those manacles was beyond her, but she wasn't bold -or stupid- enough to make any comment, let alone a sarcastic one.

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The voice of the man sounded rough when he started to speak, but Hermione forgot all about that secondary fact when the meaning of his words registered. "My name is Senior Hitwizard Selwyn of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement." he introduced himself and gave her the slightest bow, as if to mock her. "You are here because there is a strong suspicion that you tried to employ the "Ruptis Vinculis" ritual to get rid of the trace placed on you in accordance with the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery. This ritual is considered dark magic." He paused, as if to emphasize the seriousness of his allegations.

Hermione's head whirled with questions and an nearly irresistible urge to protest her innocence. "This is unbelievable and ridiculous rubbish!" she fumed inside, but before she could say anything, Selwyn continued in his raspy and monotone speech."You are also charged with three counts of illegal use of magic ancillary to said ritual, performed in a muggle area and in the presence of muggles; with one count of possession of a forbidden dark artifact, namely the book "Breaking the bonds" by Gellert Grindelwald; and with one count of reckless endangerment of muggles, namely your parents and neighbors."

Selwyn stopped and mustered her bound form. He grimaced, as if she were an especially ugly cockroach, than he began to pace before her. Hermione was truly shocked by his accusations, but she simply couldn't let those monstrous assertions stand without a sharp and immediate rebuttal. She collected herself and prepared to speak up in her own defense, but the hitwizard forestalled this by another barrage of magical legalese. "Your guardians have been informed of those charges. The fact that they are muggles made it inevitable to take them into protective custody for the duration of the case against you. This happened in compliance with the Laws of Conduct When Dealing With Muggles." He stopped his theatrical back and forth march in front of her and delivered one last, devastating statement directly to her face. "Your trial date has been settled for August 26, 9.00 a.m. sharp- in other words, it begins in three hours." Without another comment he turned around, went to the door and left a stunned Hermione behind.


	6. Holidays from Justice Chapter 2

Author's note: Dear reader! I'm sorry it took me so very long to produce this newest installment of „A witch's shards". A combination of uni, writers block and too much intoxicating reading material is to blame. While I was writing, the infamous court scene got longer and ever more complex, until I decided to cut it into two parts. Here is the first one, the hearing of evidence and the sentence will follow as soon as my muse and calendar allow.

A little spoiler for chapter seven: The plot will thicken and Harry Potter will get a look at a Ministry courtroom much earlier than in canon.

Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns the Harry Potter series. I wouldn't dream of making any money with fanfiction anyway.

Part 2

Holidays from Justice

Chapter 2

About thirty minutes had passed since Selwyn's visit in her cell when Hermione's raging mind settled down enough to tackle the content of his words in the structured and logical way she ordinarily used to do her homework or to reason through the mysteries of the magical world.

She started with the facts she was absolutely sure of- primarily her total innocence of any and all of his charges.

„I haven't even heard of the „Ruptis Vinculis" ritual, that stupid book written by Grindelwald or that it's possible to get rid of the trace." she thought indignantly.

Her outrage at the false accusations was strong enough to subdue her fear, at least temporarily. She began an attempt to integrate all the information she had as of now.

"Let's see- I've been arrested by the DMLE for crimes I haven't committed, after I woke up on the floor, surrounded by a pentacle." She hesitated and tried to remember if unicursal five pointed stars like the pentagram were used in actual magic and were more than just muggle superstition.

"Oh yes, there is a whole section on the magical properties of geometric forms in "New Theory of Numerology", and it includes the pentacle." she remembered from one of her "general reading" evenings in the library.

The passage pertaining to her current problems also mentioned dark magic and disgusting sacrificial practices.

"It seems reasonable to assume that all this is nothing but a setup." she concluded. Some unknown malicious entity was trying to harm her, using the judicial system of the ministry of magic.

A small smile formed on her features for the first time since this ordeal had begun- maybe there was reason for optimism after all.

"Surely, with mom and dad as my witnesses, with the application of common sense by the judges and with magic to check the truth of my testimony, I'll be free in no time at all."

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When they came for her, Hermione felt much more relaxed than she could've imagined when she woke up in the holding cell just hours ago.

She was sure that this farce would be over soon enough, because any so called „body of evidence" against her could only fall apart under close scrutiny.

She looked up at her captors and schooled her face into the calm and emotionless mask she had trained to adopt in the seemingly endless minutes of her imprisonment here. She had to stay cool and collected if she wanted to present her cause, that much was obvious.

Selwyn was accompanied by another wizard, a rather stocky man with a square face, shining bald head and very small blue eyes.

He looked at her like she was an interesting kind of beetle, one he would like to pierce with a shiny needle.

„This is hitwizard Jugson," Selwyn introduced him in his monotone voice „who just returned from Hogwarts, where he confiscated your school records. It seems they contain some very juicy tidbits of information."

He waited a moment and scrutinized her with a sharp look, gauging her reaction to this unexpected news.

Hermione felt a slight rise of unease, but kept her unreadable countenance intact. She was sure there was nothing in her files that could be used against her. It was obvious that the two hitwizards were just trying to unnerve her minutes before she faced the court.

She kept silent and fixed her eyes on the door, avoiding their hostile stares. „This little kitten thinks she's a Sphinx." Jugson growled. „We'll see how she holds up against the Dementors of Azkaban."

Against her fierce resolve, a cold shower ran down her back. She had read about the wizarding prison and the fearsome creatures guarding it when Hagrid had been taken there as a ministry scapegoat for the basilisk's attacks.

The description of their effect on the inmates had disgusted her and and had made her wonder about the wizarding world's view on torture.

Some of Hermione's disquiet must've shown on her face because Jugson gave a satisfied grunt.

Selwyn ignored his companion's words, flicked his right wrist and caught the wand shooting out of his sleeve with practiced ease, impressing his captive audience despite herself. He waved it through the air above Hermione's bonds, and they vanished like smoke..

„Stand up, hold your hands behind your back, and no funny business!" Jugson commanded. She did as he said, standing a bit wobbly on her legs, which were tingling like mad from the restarting bloodflow.

Selwyn produced handcuffs from the folds of his cloak and attached them roughly, scraping her skin and forcing a barely suppressed wince out of her. With another swish of his wand he transfigured her nighty into a simple black robe that fell down to her ankles.

„We'll escort you to the court now." he explained. „If you try anything, you will regret it. Move!"

Hermione started to walk slowly on her still not fully recovered limbs, unwilling to stumble around like a helpless toddler. Selwyn took a few quick steps and opened the door in front of her.

She walked through it and found herself in a badly lit corridor made of black stones. The few torches along the walls gave of an ominous green light that reminded her of Professor Snapes dungeon classroom at Hogwarts.

„To the right, and quick now!" came Jugsons voice from behind. She began to go in the given direction and was very relieved when the feeling fully returned to her legs.

Their footsteps echoed hollowly in the long hallway, contributing to her raising foreboding. The two DLME henchmen didn't speak again until they arrived at a large doorway set in the right wall.

This time it was Jugson who stepped in front of her to open. He gave her a nasty, threatening smirk before he pushed down on the handle and lead Hermione into the courtroom.

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A jolt of relief shot through her when she entered and saw her parents sitting on a bench to the left side of the chamber. They wore their best clothes and looked healthy, but their faces showed a curious blankness, as if their presence at a wizarding tribunal didn't face them at all.

For a moment she thought they were merely exhibiting their „professional" faces, but when neither Charles nor Miriam reacted in any way to their shackled daughters appearance, Hermione felt her alarm from earlier that morning return tenfold.

„Something is wrong! What did they do to them?" she thought anxiously. The desperate need to check on her loved ones wiped all of Hermione's carefully laid plans for her trial conduct from her mind.

She leapt away from her guards and started to run towards her parents as fast as she could, but the polished marble floor turned out to be far too slippery for the rather unatheletic girl.

Unbalanced by the arms bound behind her back. Hermione stumbled and fell, painfully bloodying her knees in the process.

A fraction of a second later, a glistening red curse whooshed over her head and hit her motionless mother in the chest.

Before Hermione's horror widened eyes, Miriam Granger toppled over like a felled tree and crashed to the floor. The back of her head smashed against the black marble and produced a sickening crunching sound, then she lay still.

Time seemed to stretch like a rubber band while her eyes wandered from the prone figure of her mom to the still form of her father, who hadn't moved even a finger while his wife became collateral damage.

His face looked as if it was chiseled in stone, not a single muscle moved and his eyes stared unseeingly, like those of a dead fish.

The rubber band snapped back and Hermione felt something break loose inside of her.

Rage like she had never known before surged through her body, a tidal wave of uncontrollable power that felt as if it could annihilate everything in its path.

She sprang up from her kneeing position, but before she could turn around, a hard blow hit her in the back and sent her down again. Ignoring the intense pain from her back and her doubly abused raw kness, Hermione threw herself to the side and came face to face with her attackers.

The baffled expression on Jugson's face only served to stroke the wild magic flowing through her veins. His outstretched wand was still pointing at the place she had occupied a second ago.

Beside him stood Selwyn, who looked even more perplexed, his wand arm hanging loose at his side.

The seething anger rampaging though her exploded at the sight of Miriam's assailants, it made her hairs stand up and bristle with energy. Morphing into pure hate, it was a lioness, roaring in her ears, searching for a way, any way, to hurt those hurting her.

She wrenched her arms around behind her until the fingers of her right hand were trained on Jugson.

Hermione, the straight 'O' student who knew every spell and curse of the first and second year curriculae by heart, didn't cry out an incantation, neither did she swish or flick with her fingers, as if she held a wand.

All those intricate methods of wielding magic seemed to be moot accessories, when the pulsing, red hot ire inside of her found its way to her fingertips and embodied itself in a jet of blinding blue light that raced across the gap between her and the hitwizard.

The bald man shouted something unintelligible and a gleaming white shield flickered into existence in front of him, just in time to intercept her furious attack. He was thrown back and landed a dozen feet away, the impact driving the air from his lungs.

With savage satisfaction, she switched her attention to Selwyn, who had shaken off his surprise and was brandishing his wand in her direction.

A red curse sprang from it's tip and darted towards her. She started to roll away, but the awkward position of her bound arms slowed her down too much to escape unharmed.

This time, her legs took the hit and a sudden dizziness set in. Hermione tried to move further sideways, but her senses were suddenly too muddled to succeed and the rage that had fueled her actions until now was draining away rapidly.

Sylvin's face appeared in her shrinking field of vision, and his scornful expression seemed to mock her, just before her consciousness faded away.

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Professor Minerva McGonagall stared transfixed while the stupefied body of one of her model pupils was manhandled into the massive defendant's chair of the courtroom.

One of the hitwizards used his wand to chain the insensible Ms. Granger to the distasteful iron contraption. The incongruent sight of the young girl bound in magic resistant steel forced McGonagall to finally admit to herself that she felt deeply shaken.

Her day had started out calm and enjoyable enough, with a hearty breakfast in the almost empty great hall, strong coffee and a sedate workload to look forward to.

She hadn't been pleased when an owl landed in front of her, presenting a letter with the seal of the ministry of magic, but while Albus was away in Vienna to attend a meeting of the International Confederation of Wizards, it was her duty to deal with all ministry business.

To her surprise and disquiet, the message came from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. It informed her in very curt sentences, that a hitwizard called Jugson – she'd never heard of him - solicited entrance into the school, to confiscate all of Hogwarts' documents pertaining to "Granger, Hermione J.".

The missive gave no explanation for this very unusual request, and McGonagall instantly began to worry about the soon to be third year student and her family.

Maybe someone in the DMLE had gotten wind on Dumbledore's time turner deal with the Unspeakables?

She hoped not, because convincing the secretive Department of Mysteries to part with one of their playthings for the benefit of a "mere" student had been hard enough without some other bureaucratic busybody sticking their nose into the scheme.

On the other hand, if this had nothing to do with Ms. Granger's wish to take up an impossible lesson plan, it would probably be something much worse than another roll of intraministerial red tape.

Unsettled and unable to eat another bite, she rose from the teachers table, straightened her severe black robes, nodded farewell to Filius Flitwick, the only other person attending this early, and marched off stridently to "welcome" the DMLE hitwizard to Hogwarts.

When she arrived in her spartan office, she threw a handful of floo- powder into the fireplace and called out: "Hitwizard office, Ministry of Magic". The fire -which burned day and night all year round for communicative purposes- turned green and McGonagall kneeled down in front of it.

Sticking her head into the flames, she ignored the disturbing mechanics common to floo calls, instead focussing on the questions she wanted to ask of this Jugson individual.

When the bureau came into view, she wasted now time and simply spoke into the room. "This is Deputy Headmistress McGonagall, could I speak with hitwizard Jugson, please?" A young wizard, who was sitting at his desk nearby looked up, gave her an acknowledging nod and went off in search.

A minute or two later, a rather stocky man came into view. He was bald, looked dominating in his black robe cum uniform and his eyes held an unpleasant coldness, somewhere between professionalism and cynicism.

"Deputy Headmistress." he greeted in a deep voice. "Thank you for answering my summons so promptly. Make some room and I'll come through immediately!"

She felt her irritation rise at his arrogant tone, but removed herself from the fireplace and walked swiftly over to her massive desk, sitting down behind it to underscore her own position and Jugson's role as petitioner.

He came through the floo like a charging dragon, making sparks fly up around him -some of which fell onto her carpet- and revealed himself as one of those DMLE agents who enjoyed playing the role coming with the job to the fullest extend possible.

McGonagall opened her mouth to reprimand him for scorching her furnishing, but Jugson cut her short. "Do you have the file on the Granger girl?" he pressed without preamble. "I've only got two hours to work through it before the trial starts."

Minerva McGonagall had decades of experience dealing with impertinent people, most of them her own students, but the way Jugson acted made her blood boil, her anger fueled as much by her increasing worry about Ms. Granger as by Jugson's audacity.

She stood up slowly, leaned over her desk and consciously produced the most frightening and fierce scowl at her disposel. Her inflection was at least as cold as the hitwizard's eyes when she finally addressed him.

"Mr. Jugson, before you get anything from me, be it another minute of my valuable time, or even the school files of Ms. Granger, you will explain to me in detail what this hassle is all about."

She stared him directly in the face and her expression dared him to ignore her wishes only at his own peril. After a few seconds of heavy, threatening silence, Jugson relaxed his aggressive body posture slightly. He sighed and shook his head.

"You have to excuse my lack of manners, deputy headmistress. I've been up all night dealing with the mess your" he stressed the possessive adjective as if to indicate McGonagall's personal responsibility "student Hermione Granger has made".

"What do you mean by "mess"?" she snarled. "Stop talking in riddles, my patience is running out!" Jugson stood his ground and tried in vain to hide his intense annoyance with her.

"Ms. Granger has been charged for using a dark arts ritual, trying to break the trace and corresponding crimes." he ground out. McGonagall gasped and raised a hand to her mouth in shock, but the hitwizard remained unmoved by her obvious distress.

"The girl's trial starts at 9 a.m. If you don't want a legal battle with the chief judge and Madame Bones, you better hand over those documents."

Silence fell over the office while McGonagall tried to assimilate what she had heard. Why on earth would Hermione Granger, a bright and very promising muggleborn witch, do any of those things.

Even more to the point, how could she have done magic that required at least sixth or seventh year knowledge? It sounded ridiculous, like something a paranoid blood purist would come up with.

She shook her head to clear away her confusion, and drew up her "no nonsense" persona, normally used to keep Gryffindor house under firm control. She discarded the accusations and focused on what had to be done now.

"Come with me!" she told Jugson abruptly, and strode out of her office without checking if he followed. "I'll take you to the archives, you can collect what you came for, and then I'll accompany you back to the ministry. I need to have a chat with Madame Bones."

/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG

Waking up from magically induced unconsciousness was quickly becoming a hated routine for Hermione Granger. Even with the first flickering of perception, she had recognized the symptoms of being stunned.

In addition, her knees burned dully, her arms felt stiff like sticks and she had a taste in her mouth as if something had died in there. Her body felt drained compared to the time before, when she had awoken in the white walled holding cell. "Wait! Holding cell? Darn it!"

A cascade of disturbing associations was triggered and with a mix between a gurgle and a shout, she came to full awareness. Her eyes shot open and she tried to stand up, only to find herself tightly bound to another chair, this one placed in front of a bench seating three witches in daunting crimson robes.

They stared at her with an unreadable, flat demeanor, much more intimidating than any emotional display could've achieved.

Hermione wanted to shrink back, to close her eyes, to pretend she was too weak to sit trial, too exhausted to defend herself against their allegations, reality based and made up ones alike.

But she knew she couldn't do that, because there was something she desperately needed to know. At once.

"What did you do to my mom?" she cried in a voice that contained equal parts childish plea and teenage accusation. The three judges didn't react at all, but someone at her side cleared their throat.

She turned her head in that direction and came face to face with the last person she had expected. "Professor McGonagall?" she stammered, flabbergasted by her head of house's sudden appearance.

"Hello Ms. Granger. Your mother is alive and on her way to recovery." McGonagall said in her typical strict tone, one that was nonetheless soothing to her scared pupil. Hermione felt as if a heavy wight was lifted of her chest, and warm gratitude for her teacher welled up in her.

She shot a quick look at the bench, then leaned over to McGonagall as far as she could and whispered. "Thank you professor. I'm really grateful that you're here. Could I see my mom?" The deputy headmistress shook her head. "No, we had to move her to St. Mungos hospital to ensure that she is treated by the best healers."

She took a step closer to Hermione, and reduced the volume of her speech. "The paramedic who took her in also administered a dose of pepper up potion to you.

"I tried to dissuade the court from going ahead with the trial today, because you wouldn't wake up after the curse was lifted, but they were adamant."

The disapprovel McGonagall felt over this was easy to decipher from the frown on her face, but it was underlayed with something else, a strained reluctance. Was it distrust?

The dangerous situation she found herself in rushed back to overpower all the relieve she'd felt moments ago. Hermione pressed her lips together and tried to preserve some semblance of composure. She had the feeling that she would need every bit of it very soon.

Professor McGonagall spoke again, even more hushed than before. "I've been informed about the charges brought against you, and as your head of house and the person acting in loco parentis to you for the duration of the school year, I volunteered to be your trial counsel and witness for the defense."

She paused, mustering Hermione intensely, as if she wondered if her offer was such a good idea, after all. "Do you accept?"

Without hesitation, the young witch nodded fervently. "I would really appreciate that, Professor."

"There are only a few minutes left before the respite I obtained from the Interrogators runs out. We must improvise a realistic trial strategy. You are the accused, you know what happened. Do you have any suggestions?"

McGonagall looked expectantly at Hermione. The teenager squirmed uncomfortably in her chains, confused and miffed by her teachers attitude.

"Isn't it the task of the attorney to come up with all that, even more so when an underage person is prosecuted?" she wondered. Setting such juridical questions aside, she tried to recall what she'd planned before everything went haywire.

"I've actually given some thought to it while I waited for the hearing to commence." she explainer. "It seems to me that the best plan is the obvious one." She gave McGonagall an unsure look, but the deputy headmistress motioned her to go on.

"I want to plead "not guilty" to all original counts." Hermione declared fiercely, trying to persuade herself as much as McGonagall.

She remembered how confident she'd felt in the secure knowledge that she was an innocent victim of framing, but she couldn't predict how her most recent behavior would influence the trials outcome.

"As for my..." she hesitated, searching for the right word "eh, display before, I would like to claim that it was an excess of emergency assistance to my parents."

She waited a moment to give the professor an opportunity to add something, but to her disappointment, McGonagall acquiesced to her proposed agenda without further question, as if it wasn't that important to her.

"What's wrong with the professor?" Hermione fretted. "Does she know something I don't about the evidence they will display?"

Before she could formulate a polite way to question McGonagall, the deputy headmistress turned away from her and gave a bow to the judges.

The one sitting in the middle, a toad-like person with a wide face, fat jowls and bulging eyes -all in all a disturbing sight- harrumphed and set up as straight as her voluminous body allowed.

She gave a pompous wave to a mousy little women sitting in a small booth to the side, and started to read from a parchment clutched in her stubby, beringed fingers. Her voice was absurdly high pitched and her mien seemed to indicate that she thought the whole proceedings were held in her own honor.

"Criminal inquiry, Tuesday August 26 1993, into the reprehensible activities of one Hermione Jane Granger. Closed session due to the defendant's juvenility. Presiding Interrogator:" - at this point she seemed to swell up even more- "Dolores Jane Umbridge, Senior Undersecretary to the Minister of Magic."

She paused for a moment, savoring her importance, and when she went on, her tone got increasingly listless.

"Assessors: Amelia Susan Bones, Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement." The woman to Umbridge's left gave a curt nod. She had short grey hair, wore a monocle and projected a sense of respectability that the Senior Undersecretary decidedly lacked.

Umbridge droned on. "Mafalda Maria Hopkirk, Head of the Improper Use of Magic Office." The judge on the right produced a nervous little bow, her oddly avian features scrunched up as if she would rather be elsewhere.

"Defense witness: Minerva McGonagall, Deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry". Hermione wasn't entirely sure, but from Umbridge's tone she got the impression that the toad- woman didn't much like McGonagall.

Finally, the list of attending officials ended with "Court Scribe: Mary Elizabeth Cattermole."

A long silence occurred while the "Presiding Interrogator" - a rank sounding nearly as threatening as the old catholic title of "Grand Inquisitor", at least in Hermione's opinion- shuffled through the mount of files on her desk.

Despite the feeling of constant distress that seemed to permeate her mind, Hermione's natural curiosity used the lull to emerge from it's hiding hole.

First, she tried to look behind her, to check if her dad was still sitting on his bench like an abandoned pillar of salt, but the way she was fixated to the high backed chair didn't allow it.

Disappointed and scared for Charles' well being, she distracted herself by stretching her neck, and turned her head in all physically possible directions.

The torch light in the court room was dim, just bright enough to read, other people's faces or texts alike, and the walls were made of black stone, exactly the same material as in the corridor outside.

If the architects of this edificial abomination had been aiming to cause an oppressive and bleak feeling in everyone who entered, they had outdone themselves.

But the strangest thing in the room was the ceiling, or, to be more precise, it's nonexistence. The walls just went up and up, until they vanished in a pitch black rectangle.

It reminded her of pictures she had seen from the inside of elevator shafts, and it induced the same impression- claustrophobia.

"Hem Hem!" Umbridge's simpering cough broke through the hush that had settled over the room, making Hermione's eyes snap back to the Senior Undersecretary's face, which held an expression of such honey encrusted malice, that her stomach plunged in fear.

"Now that Ms. Granger has decided to grace this court with her wandering attention, we will procede with the arraignment." She held out a scroll to Madame Bones.

"Amelia, would you do the honors? After all, it is the dependable work of your whole department which will ensure that this despicable criminal is brought to justice."

Madame Bones took the parchment, but she looked as if a bad tooth was plaguing her. Maybe she resented to be called by her first name in a court of law, but her distaste could also be a reaction to Umbridge's choice of words.

Hermione waited with baited breath for a razor sharp "Objection, argumentative!", or at least it's wizarding equivalent, but McGongall remained silent in the face of Umbridge's obvious prejudgment.

It was already the second such infraction if one counted the ludicrous insertion of Hermione's so called "reprehensible activities" into the reading of the list of attendants.

This trial shaped up to be irregular, at least if she applied the little she knew of muggle standards of justice, and Hermione's trust in a fair and lawful process got it's first cracks.

She tried to imagine what the Presiding Interrogator's continued and inexplicable enmity to her would mean for the whole proceedings, and the result was terrifying.

It was clear that she couldn't let this kind of behavior go unchallenged for long, if she wanted a good chance of being acquitted. Hermione resolved to press McGonagall on it as soon as the opening phase of the trial concluded.

"We will start by confirming the accused's personal information." the head of the DMLE declared authoritatively. Her sharp gaze fell on Hermione. "Are you in fact Hermione Jane Granger, of number twelve Essex Villas, Kensington, London?"

"Yes, your honor." Hermione acknowledged shakily.

Without further ado, Madame Bones started to read the arraignment in her loud and clear voice.

"This court, instantiated by the Wizengamot, and in it's current disposition authorized by Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge, charges Hermione Jane Granger, at present student of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, with the following crimes."

Hermione leaned forward and tried to mobilize all her concentration. This was it. The police -or hitwizards- could accuse you of anything they wanted, but what counted was what the prosecutor thought they could actually proof.

Or at least that was what they always said in "Crown Court" on Channel 3. She nearly missed when her "Interrogator" carried on.

"Count one: In the night of Monday, August 25th 1993, at twelve minutes past two, Ms. Granger attempted to implement the "Ruptis Vinculis" ritual, banned under the Prohibitions against Dark Rites and Sacrifices Act, revised version of 1947."

"Still as ridiculous as the first time I heard it!" Hermione thought. "But the accusation is made all the more chilling by their presumption that they can provide compelling evidence that I did this."

She shuddered, remembering how she'd woken up on the floor, in the midst of a pentagram.

Hermione send a look in McGonagall's direction, gauging her reaction to the severeness of the charge, but the professor's stoic expression was unreadable, only accentuated by an ambiguous frown.

"I really hope the court's list of imputations is shorter than Selwyn's!" Hermione pondered frightenedly. It pained her that her head of house had to hear this, and even more the possibility that she believed some of it.

Indeed, Madame Bones' powerful oratory gave those allegations much more credibility, even in Hermione's ears, than they deserved when weighed against their patent absurdity.

"Count two: The accused perpetrated this transgression to break the charm known as "The Trace", placed on her in accordance with paragraph F, article four, of the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery from 1875.

As specified in appendix seven of said Decree, every attempt to tamper with the aforementioned charm is in and of itself a crime against the state."

"What does 'crime against the state' mean?" she thought furiously. "If it's the same as in muggle law, they are calling me a traitor!" Alternating waves of heat and cold began to run down her back and she started to feel even more queasy.

The relentless sequence of condemning legalese continued despite Hermione's hopes for the contrary.

"Count three: In order to facilitate heretofore mentioned crimes, the accused - at approximately quarter past five on the evening of Friday, August 22th 1993 – illegally acquired and possessed the book "Breaking the bonds", written by the dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald.

This manuscript is listed as item number twenty-seven on the DMLE's Executive Censorship Decree on Dark Artifacts."

"I would really like to know from where they get those precise dates and times." Hermione wondered. "But it's most likely the same place where this whole plethora of nonsense originates" she concluded "some nasty buggers perfidious mind."

"Count four: Not more than one hour ago, Ms. Granger resisted ministry personal and used wild magic of unknown power and effect against hitwizard Attor Wregan Jugson, who avoided injury only by his fast reaction.

Paragraph eight of the DMLE Code of Justice classifies every attack against an officer on duty -harmless or not- as criminal obstruction."

Madame Bones looked up from the parchment and gave Hermione, who had started to shrink into herself in face of the only halfway legitimate charge, a piercing look, as if she wanted to make sure that the defendant was still following the account of her alleged depravations.

She cleared her throat and drank from a glass of water standing in front of her.

"Ancillary to her crimes, Ms. Granger committed the following misdemeanors."

Hermione paid heed. "Maybe the worst is over now?" She longed for this farce of an accusal to finish, to get an opportunity to react.

"Count one: To achieve the "Ruptis Vinculis" ritual, Ms. Granger performed at least three other incantations, all in violation of paragraph C of the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery."

"They couldn't be more unspecific if they tried!" Hermione raged inside, frustrated and scared by her unfamiliar role as helpless punching ball of a hallucinating justice system.

A new thought popped up. "What if that's exactly what they did? Maybe this is a weakness in their prosecution and the wishy- washy wording is their way to hide it?"

She made a mental notice of this and switched her focus back to Madame Bones.

"Count two: The accused performed her acts in a muggle area, although their nature embodied an extremely heightened probability of detection, breaking paragraph seven, article three of the International Code of Wizarding Secrecy."

"Now they start to argue with counterfactual probabilities, they must be really eager to hit me with every paragraph in the books."

McGonagall seemed to share her assessment, because her constant frown lifted just a bit.

"Count three: The above mentioned actions, especially the defendant's endeavor to execute the volatile "Ruptis Vinculis" ritual, constitute a reckless endangerment of muggles, namely Ms. Granger's parents and neighbors. This is an unambiguous breach of paragraphs twelve, thirteen and thirty- four of the Law of Conduct When Dealing With Muggles."

"I'd like to know how they reconcile their own treatment of mom and dad with that darn law." Hermione thought agitatedly.

"Breaking into our house, kidnapping them and somehow paralyzing them beyond the ability to move a single muscle, that ought to be a real "unambiguous breach" of a whole bunch of paragraphs!"

Her bitterness must've shown on her features, because Undersecretary Umbridge smiled widely when she addressed the court again.

"Thank you Amelia, for this comprehensive account of Ms. Granger's deeds."

Her bulging eyes shone with barely contained malevolence when they focused on Hermione. The young witch got the unsettling impression that the disgusting woman was hoping to destroy her with her gaze alone.

"I'm sure every witch and wizard of good standing would agree that Ms. Granger must be severely punished for her crimes." Umbridge simpered. "She is a prime example for the total failure of liberal education and permissive muggleborn integration policies."

Hermione opened her mouth slowly, careening between her burning desire to tell the "Presiding Interrogator" what she thought of her attempt to instrumentalize this already farcical trial for reactionary political propaganda, and the undiluted fear the whole situation sparked in her.

McGonagall stepped closer and put a reassuring hand on her shoulder, and that was the only thing which finally stopped her from an undoubtedly disastrous outburst.

Neither Madame Bones nor Mafalda Hopkirk looked pleased by the direction in which Umbridge was taking the trial, but they didn't intervene when the Senior Undersecretary continued.

"I admit" the women lilted "that the defendant is very young in years, but that serves only to underscore her wickedness and the collapse of educational discipline that must've preceded her descent into the dark arts."

She looked around the room triumphantly, as if she was speaking to an audience made up entirely from her personal fanclub.

"But the Ministry of Magic and our laws are just. If Ms. Granger is ready to confess now, to plead guilty on all charges, this court will surly be prepared to show her some clemency."

Umbridge's gaze returned to Hermione and rested on her for several silent, charged moments.

Maybe she tried to project benignity, but the resulting grimace reminded Hermione of nothing more than the smiling face of Pennywise the clown, a character from a horror movie she'd once caught a few glimpses of before her parents hurried her off to bed.

"On the other hand" Umbridge went on, her impossible wide mouth twisting into a grotesque sneer "obduracy and the playing of futile legal games will only result in a sentence that fits the crime."

The Undersecretary bowed forward on the bench, and the wooden chair bearing her weight creaked alarmingly. She stared at Hermione and their eyes met for a second.

In that fleeting instance, the girl saw something horrible deep inside the toads protruding black orbs, a gruesome craving, intermingled with sadistic malignity. It chilled Hermione to her very bones.

"How do you plead, Ms. Granger?"

/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG/HG


	7. Holidays from Justice Chapter 3

AN: Well, this has taken a long time and many of you might've thought that the story was abandoned. It isn't and I have no intention to do so.

This chapter is a result of the positive review the reader "skywiseskychan" left me yesterday. It was the first review concerning this story for more than half a year, and gave me the motivation to sit down and go over what I'd written so far.

I edited and added a few hundred words here and there, then decided that diving back into "A witch's shards" was more important than to finish the infamous court scene in one chapter. Here is the result, have fun with it!

Part 2

Holidays from Justice

Chapter 3

Hermione's throat felt as dry as the Kalahari dessert, and she was forced to swallow repeatedly before she could present the statement she had worked on in the back of her head for the last minutes.

Finally, she fixed Madame Bones, who she thought to be the most sympathetic to her, in her gaze, and started to speak.

„I'm not guilty of any of the crimes I'm accused of." she stated simply and with as much conviction and firmness as she could muster.

Madam Bones' eyes widened a tiny fraction, maybe in surprise, but before any other reaction – especially from Umbridge – was forthcoming, Hermione hurried on, determined to have her say now that the barrage of accusations was finally over.

„The only count I'm technically responsible for is number four" she declared, letting the fury she felt about the treatment of her parents infuse her voice with steel. „But I submit to the court that my so called 'resistance to ministry personal' and „use of wild magic" was actually an excess of emergency assistance, provoked by the absolutely unjustified treatment my parents suffered at the hands of this court itself."

A shocked silence descended on the room, and Hermione noticed an angry vertical frown line forming on Madame Bones' forehead.

Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to accuse the woman's underlings of wrongdoing if she wanted to impress her?

The court's astonishment hadn't quite worn off in the second Hermione had taken to come to that insight, and she resumed her defense without hesitation.

„I don't know how it was done, by whom or even why, but considering what has happened to me, I've come to the conclusion that I was framed by a malevol..."

Her statement was cut off abruptly, and though her lips were still forming the last words of the sentence, she couldn't hear a sound of what she was saying.

Confused, Hermione looked away from Madame Bones and saw that Umbridge, who had heaved her body out of her chair, was pointing a wand in her direction. Her face was red as a tomato, the features scrunched up in mindless fury, and there was actually a pulsing vein emerging on her left temple.

„This is more than enough!" the Presiding Interrogator shouted furiously, spittle flying from her mouth.

„Not only does the accused mock this court with ridiculously false claims of innocence, but she dares to shift the blame for her crimes on our law enforcement officers!"

Umbridge was shaking with rage and the small analytical part of Hermione's mind which wasn't quivering in fear asked itself how such an unstable and crass person could rise to the position of Undersecretary to the Minister of Magic.

The blustering toad took a deep breath and visibly calmed herself before she addressed her fellow judges in her usual simpering tone.

„Amelia, Mafalda, please excuse my temper, I can't bear it when our brave hit wizards and the reasonable laws and edicts they protect are scorned."

The two witches nodded, reluctantly in the case of Madame Bones. Umbridge turned her bulging eyes back to Hermione and a sneer formed on her wide mouth.

„As Presiding Interrogator of this court of justice, I motion that the accused shall be muted for the rest of the proceedings, except for times in which the court has questions for her. Her contempt of the justice system and the judges appointed to determine her fate is obvious and intolerable."

„I second the motion." Mrs. Hopkirk declared, piercing Hermione with an angry glare.

Hermione's directed a pleading gaze to Madame Bones, who looked as if she had swallowed something vile and was forcing herself not to throw up. „Silencing a defendant in juvenille court seems excessive to me." she informed the other women curtly. „I vote against it."

„The court has decided two to one to silence the unruly defendant" Umbridge stated in satisfaction.

"We will now begin to assess the overwhelming evidence against Ms. Granger."

She nodded her fat head eagerly, as if she couldn't wait to see Hermione humbled.

„We call Senior Hitwizard Selwyn of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement into the stand."

Hermione heard the doors of the courtroom open behind her and heavy steps started to approach the interrogators' bench rapidly, until she could glimpse the intimidating silhouette of her captor from the corner of her eyes.

„Dear cousin, it is a pleasure to see you healthy and in good spirits after you had to deal with such a dangerous criminal as the accused." Umbgridge simpered in greeting.

Selvyn stayed mute, but gave a polite nod, acknowledging the Presiding Interrogator.

His demure reaction seemed to confuse Umbridge for a moment, but she realized quickly that her words, while establishing her family connection to the ancient Selwyn pureblood line to everyone in the room, were rather improper for a court of law.

Turning her head to the scribe, she spat out a crisp „Delete the last sentence!" and went on more formally.

„The court of Interrogaters acknowledges Senior Hitwizard Selvyn as a witness. He is personally known to all of us, the information on his identity can be added to the record post factum."

The other judges signaled their acquiescence and Hermione wondered again about the arbitrariness of the proceedings.

Being silenced for defending herself and seeing Umbridge boasting with her pure blood „credentials" was dreadful, but it helped her to realize that she wasn't just facing one biased judge, but a kangaroo court.

If the trial ended as it had started, she would be lucky if McGonagall was able to keep her out of Azkaban. The mere thought send shivers of fear through her whole body and she had to force back tears of despair.

She clenched her teeth and managed to seal of her tear ducts. Umbridge's blustering provoked a cynical thought to pierce the fog of misery in her mind.

„And this is the „just and reasonable" justice system the ministry boasts about in their orientation booklets for muggleborns. Preposterous!"

„Hitwizard Selwyn, could you please describe to this court how you discovered the crimes of the defendant?" the Presiding Interrogator queried the witness pleasantly.

Selvyn stood up straighter and clasped his hands behind his back, exactly as he had done when he had paced in front of Hermione a few hours previously.

„Of course, your honor. At twelve minutes past two in the morning of August 23rd, the set of dark magic detection runes coupled to the output map of the countrywide systemic charm commonly known as „The Trace" alarmed the on duty officer in the Improper Use of Magic Office to a developing situation in the vicinity of number twelve, Essex Villas, Kensington, London."

He paused and took a deep breath, as if he was fortifying himself for the next outrageous part, a very professional display of playing the court, at least in Hermione's estimation.

„Due to the extreme danger posed by the use of dark magic by an underage witch in a muggle neighborhood, he alarmed the hitwizard squad on call."

He shook his head as if he still couldn't believe the severity of her so called „crime".

„Directly after being alarmed, I personally enchanted a portkey, took my partner hitwizard Jugson with me, and left for the crime scene. Entering the premises of the Granger home, we encountered fierce resistance by the muggle" - Selvyn's disparaging tone when uttering the word indicated his disdain for non- magical people very clearly - „Charles Granger, and had to stun him on the spot. I left Jugson behind to deal with the muggle Miriam Granger and entered the room of the accused."

Selvyn attempted to make another of his rather theatrical pauses, but this time Madame Bones stepped in to hasten the statement along.

„What did you find there, Mr Selvyn?" she asked harshly, obviously displeased by his tactics. „And remember" she admonished him „that this is not the stage of the Circe Coliseum."

„Of course, your honor" Selvyn agreed smoothly.

„As I was saying, I entered Ms. Grangers bedroom. She was standing in the shadows in a threatening posture, besides a pentacle obviously used for dark purposes. I acted according to standard procedure and eliminated any possible danger to my person by stunning the perpetrator."

Fury exploded through Hermione as the so called „officer of the law" distorted the truth in such a incriminatory way, but her grimaces and the wild shaking of her head were ignored by the three interrogators.

„After incapacitating Mrs. Granger, Hitwizard Jugson joined me in securing the room and searching for evidence. In addition to the pentacle and the defendant's wand, we found a book with the title "Breaking the bonds", laying opened on the accused's desk. I recognized it as an item listed in the DMLE's Executive Censorship Decree on Dark Literature."

„Do you have knowledge of the content of this book?" Interrogator Hopkirk asked grimly.

„Yes, it supplies a sufficiently depraved individual with all steps necessary to complete the highly illegal "Ruptis Vinculis" ritual, which is used to redact an underage witch or wizard from the matrix of the „Trace" charm. That knowledge includes, in addition to the ritual itself, several incantations needed to temporarily block the „Trace" while the ritual is performed. The defendant must've botched those initial incantations."

Slevyn turned slightly in Hermiones's direction and gave her a disparaging look while he continued his explanation.

„The potential for catastrophic results represented by "Ruptis Vinculis" has been shown by none other than its inventor, Gellert Grindelwald, who started to torture and murder people as soon as he freed himself from the Trace in 1898, after his expulsion from Durmstrang. He had just turned sixteen at the time, if I remember correctly."

The court was silent for a moment while the judges leaned back in their chairs and seemed to reflect on the hazard an underage dark witch outside the Trace matrix could pose to the Statute of Secrecy.

After a minute had passed, Hermione started to fidget uneasily in her iron chair. The oppressive silence and the troubled expressions of the Interrogators, especially Madame Bones', were worrying her.

Umbridge ended the moment with one of her trademark throat clearings and thanked Selvyn with ridiculous effusiveness for his „Dedication to the safety of all law abiding witches and wizards."

She was swelling with the importance of her own words once again, but went on with the trial eventually, after she had uttered half a dozen more simpering sentences of nothingness.

„As the next witness, the court calls..."

A very severe, downright frightening „Harumppf!" interrupted Umbridge, and in reaction, every eye in the room focused on Deputy Headmistress McGonagall.

„It looks as if she has decided to finally honor her role as my advocate" Hermione thought with a mix of relief and annoyance.

„If imitating the toad womans spleen to spite her is the right way to start my defense is another question though."

The Presiding Interrogator clearly understood McGonagall's message, because her face flushed once again and her heavy bosom heaved in visible agitation.

„What is the meaning of this, Ms. McGonagall?" she asked in faked confusion, retributing the professors taunt by ostensibly forgetting her titles.

„I would like to remind the court that the defense counsel is entitled to cross examine witnesses." McGonagall stated flatly.

„But whatever for? Senior Hit Wizard Selvyn has described the situation he found in the Granger home in great detail. I don't understand why anyone would want to stop him from returning to his pressing duties."

„Regardless, I insist on my rights as Ms. Granger's counsel." the professor declared and took a few quick steps towards Umbridge's thronelike bench.

Her demeanor wasn't threatening per se, but her straight pose and flinty eyed gaze signaled that no one – not even the Senior Undersecretary to the Minister of Magic – was well advised to trifle with her.

Umbridge turned to her assessors and raised her eyebrows, inviting them to comment, but both of them declined to come to her defense. She deflated slightly and gave the Deputy Headmistress a sour look.

„Very well Ms. McGonagall, you might proceed to question Senior Hit Wizard Selvyn."

The professor faced the gaunt man, who appeared rattled by the sudden turn of the proceedings.

McGonagall's whole posture changed, reminding Hermione of a cat ready to bounce on her prey.

„Mr. Selvyn," she began calmly „you told us that you secured the book „Breaking the bonds" in Ms. Grangers' bedroom. Could I take a look at it?"

Judging by Selvyns expression, the question came very much out of left field for him, but he rallied quickly and pulled a small package out of his cloak's inner pocket. A quick spell later, he had enlarged and opened it with a complex set of wand motions.

To Hermione's inexperienced eye, the thing looked like a bizarre cross between a medieval strongbox and a modern filing cabinet. It served its purpose though, because a second later, Selvyn held out a thin book to McGonagall, who accepted it gingerly and handled it as if it could snap at her.

„And it might just do that" Hermione mused, momentarily distracted from the scene by memories of the cursed books she'd seen in the restricted section of the Hogwarts library.

The professor opened the book cautiously, but started to thumb through it quickly when only a few dust motes emanated from it. She stopped moments later, obviously finding what she was looking for, and started to scan the text intensely.

Umbridge looked on with visible impatience, and when a minute had passed, she opened her wide mouth to interrupt.

McGonagall chose that exact moment to close the book with a resounding clap that echoed through the court room, leaving the Senior Undersecretary sitting there with her mouth hanging wide open.

„Just like a toad ready to catch a fly." Hermione reflected with dry gallows humor.

She sobered quickly when the professor used the attention she had garnered to explain herself.

„As some of you may know, I was one of those who fought You-Know-Who and his death eaters in the last war." she started, getting an affirming nod from Madame Bones in reply.

„In the course of my duty, I was confronted with the aftermath of several dark arts rituals, and I learned a thing or two about them, especially how to identify those who had sullied themselves by performing such deplorable acts."

„Where is she going with this?" was the question that flitted through Hermione's mind, but obviously not only through hers, because everyone in the courtroom listened tensely, a mixture of confusion and disquiet on their features.

„I asked Mr. Selvyn to show me the book because I suspected – correctly - that the „Ruptus Vinculus" ritual is one of those requiring a blood sacrifice by the person who uses it. Consequently ..." McGonagall smiled slightly as she delivered her punchline „... I would like to know if the Hit Wizard Office has performed an Asher- Reversion on Ms. Granger, to ensure she was the actual culprit."

Selvyn was clearly taken off guard by this demand.

„Well, you see professor..." he shot a quick gaze at Umbridge, as is he was hoping to get help from her, but for once Umbridge ignored her cousin's prompt. Instead she leaned forward frowning in what was probably slightly confused interest. 

Maybe she'd never heard of a so called „Asher- Reversion. If so, it would be one of the very few things she had in common with one Hermione Granger.

„... it didn't even occur to me that there was any need for excessive forensic work."

His words had gained surety while he spoke, and he continued in the „actors" voice he'd used before.

„After all, we caught Ms. Granger in the act and secured evidence," he pointed towards the book still in McGonagall's hands „which proved to us beyond any reasonable doubt that she was the guilty party."

The Professor nodded along to his words, smiling wryly.

"I'm sure you liquidated every doubt you might've had with the utmost diligence." she declared smoothly, with a nearly undetectable hint of irony.

"Nonetheless, you don't know Ms. Granger as I do as her teacher and head of house. In my estimation, it's utterly out of character for her to even contemplate using the dark arts, not to speak of actually doing so."

She stood up straighter when she delivered the last line of her declaration of trust:

"I'm convinced that Ms. Granger is correct in her assessment that she was framed by persons unknown."

McGonagall swiveled her head around like a lioness searching for pray, a fierce stare in her flinty eyes, challenging everyone present to call her expertise as a teacher and judge of her pupils into question.

Hermione felt her heart swell inside her chest as she heard McGonagall's words of confidence and support. Finally, her Professor had ended the incomprehensible distance she's shown so far, coming out as a formidable character witness in her own right.

"The evidence speaks to the contrary." Selvyn persisted, but it was obvious from the looks Madame Bones and Mafalda Hopkirk exchanged that the Professor's words had had at least some impact with them.

Only Umbridge appeared totally unimpressed, but that wasn't surprising if one considered her behavior thus far.

Professor McGonagall took a few steps towards the court's bench, once again a confident defender of one of her own Gryffindors.

"I move that this court has Ms. Granger examined with the standard dark art detection spells, foremost the Asher- Reversion." she demanded in the strict classroom voice that was extremely familiar and reassuring to Hermione.

"In my view, this is the only avenue open to us to exclude any doubt about Ms. Granger's guilt. In the interest of a fair and just treatment, Ms. Granger must be extended the same privilege as every other defendant, that is, she has to be presumed innocent until proven guilty."

Madame Bones agreed with this sentiment, judging by her barely detectable nod of approval.

Presiding Interrogator Umbridge gave McGonagall a dark look that openly expressed her hostility to the Deputy Headmistress in general and her newest motion in particular.

"I don't see why this court should bother with superfluous and time consuming wand- work." She stated in a bored tone.

"If we take only the evidence presented by Senior Hitwizard Selwyn into account, it is very clear that the defendant is the actual perpetrator of the crimes she stands accused of."

The fat woman turned to her co- judges for another round of intense whispering, but this time her proposed course of action was visibly not to their liking. The voices of the three witches grew sharper and loud enough for Hermione to snap up some snippets of the conversation.

"I have an appointment with the Minister…" Umbridge declared self- importantly, but her attempt to use her time schedule as a purely procedural justification caused open irritation in her fellow judges.

Madame Bones was shaking her head and even Mrs. Hopkirk seemed bothered by Umbridge's words.

The discussion continued for a minute, and Hermione got the impression that a rift started to form between the members of the court that hadn't been there before.

"… there are standard procedures, correct?" Mrs. Hopkirk asked hopefully.

The other two Interrogators were evidently divided on the question which standards were applying here though, going by the rising tempers they displayed to the whole courtroom.

After a lot of seesawing, the head of the DMLE had enough.

"It's our duty to actually impose justice!" she exclaimed angrily.

"Not at the cost of bowing to every unreasonable demand a desperate defense might devise!" Umbridge shot back, pumping herself up as if her bulk alone could decide the heated discussion in her favor.

Mrs. Hopkirk intervened between the two squabbling Ministry functionaries by clapping her hands together, and declared with a decisiveness she hadn't shown until now that she had an idea for a compromise.

After another moment of debate and Bonese's obvious acquiescence with whatever agreement the Chief of the Improper Use of Magic Office had proposed, Umbridge gave her two Assessors a look as if she had been forced to swallow a toad of her own size.

The Undersecretary glared down on McGonagall with an expression that spoke volumes about her personal enmity for the Professor.

"This court has, after _pain_staking" – she stressed the first part of the word in a transparent attempt to needle the other judges – "debate come to the conclusion, that it is prudent to administer a "Prior Incantato" inspection to the defendant's wand."

Hermione released a breath she hadn't known she was holding in. This was fantastic news for her case. She'd read about the "Prior Incantato" spell, it showed the last magic that was performed with a wand.

The young witch's heart started to beat faster in anticipation, and she had only Umbridge's "Silencio" spell to thank for not bursting out with some embarrassing exclamation of relieve.

McGonagall showed that she too was satisfied with this development by smiling down on her shackled student.

"The court would be obliged to Senior Hitwizard Selvyn if he could perform the examination." Umbridge pontificated.

She held up Hermione's wand in her chubby right hand.

The beloved vine wood and dragon heart rod had obviously lain on the desk before the fat judge the whole time, hidden from view.

"I'll be free again soon." Hermione thought fiercely, hope and a burning urge to hit back swirling inside her head.

She would get Harry and Ron on her case, and they wouldn't rest until they'd found the guilty party or parties, and brought them to justice.

"Oh Merlin, what will mom and dad make of the wizarding world when all this nasty business is over?" a cautioning consideration pierced through her emotional upheaval and thirst for redress.

Well, she had to wait, see and wing it, as she'd done for the last two years. Her attention returned to the here and now when Selvyn walked up to the bench, robes billowing.

He accepted her wand from Umbridge with his left hand, holding his own ready to cast in the right.

The man looked supremely unconcerned with the turn of events, and that may've troubled Hermione, if she hadn't been utterly fixated on her wand.

As always, it would come through for her and prove her innocent, overthrowing whatever plot had been engineered to harm her. She felt assured by its mere presence, even if its familiar weight wasn't in her own hand.

Selvyn held the vine wood wand in front of him so that everyone in the room had a good look of it.

He opened his mouth for the first syllable of the spell and began the rather complex wand movements, when he was stopped by a resounding "Crash!" from the entrance.

The door was flung open wide and everyone who wasn't bound to their chair jumped in surprise, then turned towards the disturbance in shock.

"Hermione!" a very familiar and loved voice cried out, echoing through the room.

The Boy who Lived had arrived to save her once again.


End file.
